The Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) has today published an inspection report on the Child and Family Agency (Tusla) foster care service in the Mid West service area.

HIQA conducted a desktop review inspection of the foster care service in the Mid West service area between 23-25 and 30 September 2025. The inspection examined the progress made since the previous inspection in May 2024. It focused on the allocation of social workers to coordinate the care of children in foster care. In addition to this, the inspection reviewed the care planning process, including the participation of children and their families in the preparation of the child’s care plan and child-in-care reviews. The inspection also assessed how children are protected and safeguarded from abuse, and how the governance and management structures in place support the delivery of a consistent high-quality, safe and effective foster care service.  

Of the five standards assessed, four standards were found to be substantially compliant and one standard was compliant.

Overall, HIQA found that the capacity of the service to provide a quality, safe and effective foster care service had improved since the previous inspection. This was largely due to effective workforce planning, the use of local and regional resources to manage deficits in the system and the strengthening of governance structures to ensure good monitoring and oversight of unallocated cases. Appropriate steps had been taken to reduce the number of unallocated children from 46% to 26% at the time of the inspection, with 76% of children having an allocated social worker to coordinate and plan for their assessed needs. There were effective systems in place to mitigate the risk of dual-unallocated cases, and there were no foster care households where both the foster carer and the child in the placement with them did not have an allocated social worker. 

The service was committed to strengthening the inclusion of children in the care planning process. While some progress had been made in this area in terms of more children having an up-to-date care plan, the participation of children in child-in-care reviews was low and required improvement. Other areas for improvement included ensuring statutory visits to children and the scheduling of child-in-care reviews were completed in line with regulations. The service had a plan in place to improve compliance in these areas, and there was good oversight and monitoring of this by management. 

Safeguarding practices required strengthening to ensure consistent practices in the review and monitoring of safety plans, and the meaningful participation of children in the safety planning process. There were delays in the reporting of some concerns to An Garda Síochána, which meant that the service was not fully compliant with Children First: National Guidance for the Protection and Welfare of Children (2017). New systems had been introduced to improve governance and oversight of notifications to An Garda Síochána; however, at the time of the inspection, these systems were at the early stages of implementation. The foster care service continued to be challenged by the lack of available placements due to a shortage of available foster carers, despite efforts made to recruit and retain foster carers.

Note:

• HIQA is authorised by the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality under Section 69 of the Child Care Act 1991, as amended by Section 26 of the Child Care (Amendment) Act 2011, to inspect foster care services provided by Tusla and to report on its findings to the Minister. HIQA monitors foster care services against the National Standards for Foster Care (2003) and advises the Minister and Tusla.