Irish Examiner View: Patience for Tusla please

Tusla's CEO, Bernard Gloster, has suggested that the agency needs up to €100m extra to realise its potential. Image: Larry Cummins

It is not an unreasonable expectation that we should, in all aspects of our lives, learn from our mistakes. 

That hope must be something more like a determination when the well-being of vulnerable people, especially children, is at stake. 

That seems doubly so in a society with a less than impressive record in child protection.

That record was behind the establishment of Tusla, the child and family protection agency six years ago. In a national audit last year Tusla found that more than one-in-10 - 13% - of cases of suspected abuse had not been, as is required by law, brought to garda attention. 

It may be tempting to criticise that but in reality, that the situation was identified and then rectified relatively quickly is an indication of some progress in this very difficult area.

Tusla's CEO, Bernard Gloster, has suggested that the agency needs up to €100m extra to realise its potential. That, like so many other noble ideas, is unlikely to happen as C19 devastates the economy. Patience and no little determination will be needed until that situation changes.