Child protection referrals rose by 5% in 2021 while foster carer recruitment ‘remains a challenge’

The number of referrals made to the State’s child protection and welfare services in 2021 rose by almost 5 per cent and more than 4,800 cases were still awaiting the allocation of a social worker by the end of 2021.

The Tusla Child and Family Agency annual report, which was published on Monday, shows a total of 73,069 referrals were made to child protection and welfare services in 2021, up from 69,712 in 2020.

By the end of 2021, 77 per cent of case referrals had been allocated to a named social worker while the remaining 23 per cent (4,807) were awaiting allocation.

Nine out of 10 of the 5,863 children in the care of the agency were in foster care by the end of last year, including 792 children admitted to care for the first time. However, the Tusla report warns that recruitment of sufficient foster carers “remains a challenge” and that a national recruitment plan for foster carers is under development.

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The number of children in receipt of Tusla family support services increased slightly, rising from 22,356 children in 2020 to 23,807 in 2021.

The big challenge for the agency in 2021 was the HSE cyberattack in May 2021 which “disrupted access to key Tusla systems and records” and had an “immediate impact on frontline and support services”, according to the report.

As Tusla was 90 per cent dependent on the HSE’s ICT system, the event required an “immediate shutdown” of all Tusla systems to prevent further attacks and had a “big effect” on the agency. While the attack did not result in any direct financial loss to Tusla, the agency is undertaking a “detailed review of any documents that were exfiltrated as part of the attack” with a view to informing those affected, according to the report.

Plans to develop an “effective and safe system to investigate and determine an outcome to allegations of child abuse”, as part of the Child Abuse Substantiation Procedure, were also affected by the cyberattack alongside “ongoing Covid-19 related pressures”, said the report.

However, a national technical group was established in March 2021 to address the impact of violence, harassment and aggression on Tusla employees. The 2021 annual report did not provide statistics on the number of incidents of aggression or violence made towards Tusla social care workers or other staff last year.

Overall, the total number of complaints made to the agency fell from 647 in 2020 to 598 in 2021. However, complaints about unfair treatment increased 8 per cent and complaints labelled as “lack of response/action” increased by more than 6 per cent. Complaints about behaviour or attitudes and insufficient services dropped by more than 9 per cent and overall positive feedback increased by more than 11 per cent, noted the report.

The report warned that low-harm/high-need cases continued to present a challenge for the agency because they could not be prioritised due to the high demand for more serious harm cases.

However, supports for children from some of the most vulnerable groups in Irish society, including asylum seeking children; survivors of domestic, sexual and gender-based violence; Traveller and Roma communities and LGBT+ groups, were “substantially progressed” in 2021, said the report.