We clearly have a crisis when we are talking about children who are in real danger, particularly regarding Tusla. While legislation is clearly needed and there is work to be done on that, a big issue which does not ever seem to be addressed is in regard to resourcing. We speak to people in Tusla and the workload and number of files involved are practically impossible to properly deal with. That is one of the reasons so many situations have come to light where vulnerable children have been left in dangerous places and ended up in very tragic circumstances. That is only a part of it. There are children in situations where the tragedy may not come to light until later in life when they approach the Garda or someone else and talk about things that happened in their home or in the circumstances they were in and the agencies that were there to look after them but did not have the resources to deal with it. That is a real problem. Foster care is another element of this. Very often these children are put into foster care. Sometimes it is family foster care. There is an issue with proper oversight to ensure that is done properly. That needs to be examined. Many children are in dangerous situations. Those situations are usually within their own families but we also have children coming into the country alone from other jurisdictions. I do not think there is anything in this legislation to deal with that phenomenon and sort it out. Clearly, there needs to be additional resourcing as well as additional legislation. Without the level of social work resources and social workers that we need, there will be more and more of these situations as we move into the future. I am aware of and deal with a number of situations in my constituency. Some are people in homes where there are serious mental health problems, addiction problems, etc. The children suffer, number one, and they are the ones who have to be looked after. I have come across situations where reports were put in to Tusla and Tusla made a very brief visit and was gone, saying everything was okay. There will be problems coming down the road if the resources are not in place for Tusla to follow up on a number of occasions and make visits at random and in depth. We cannot allow more of these things to happen in the future.

Sentiment score: -0.07