Fergus Finlay: We can afford the best  protection system in the world — but we are still failing children

Tusla's budget has never been sufficient for its workload — and now we are spending a fortune on unregulated private companies to make up for it 

There are degrees of risk involved for the children, from slight risk to grave. And everybody knows that where there is a delay in getting to the children, the risk grows. File picture

The noughties, it was called. The decade between 2000 and 2010. In that decade 200 children, known to our State to be at risk, died.

It’s not how we remember the noughties, of course. Just before the start of the decade, the term Celtic Tiger was coined. Some saw it as a great phrase to capture Ireland’s economic miracle, others as a catchy description of greed and waste.