Criticism never far away for Tusla - an agency dogged by legacy issues

There is a lot of goodwill towards Tusla, given its difficulties in matching its relatively modest budget with the scale of the job on its hands, but criticism never seems too far away, writes Noel Baker.

Tusla is at the eye of a storm in relation to the handling of the false allegation regarding Sgt Maurice McCabe, but it is not the first time the Child and Family Agency has come under scrutiny.

Tusla became an independent legal entity on January 1, 2014, under its parent department, the Department of Children and Youth Affairs. It was a move seen as finally giving child welfare and protection concerns the primacy they deserved following years of accusations that they were near the bottom of the to-do list within the Health Service Executive.