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

HIQA monitors services used by some of the most vulnerable children in the State and is authorised by the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs 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 or on behalf of Tusla, including non-statutory providers of foster care. HIQA monitors foster care services against the National Standards for Foster Care, 2003, and reports on its findings to the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs.

As part of its 2017 monitoring programme, HIQA is conducting thematic inspections across all 17 Tusla service areas. The report published today refers to a follow-up inspection of the Cork service area. The service was previously inspected by HIQA in February 2017. At that time, inspectors identified a number of serious risks and of the eight standards inspected against, there were five major non-compliances. HIQA returned to the Cork service area in August 2017 to assess whether the assurances and actions provided by Tusla had been implemented.

On this inspection, HIQA found that the service was in major non-compliance with all four standards assessed. While the timeframe had not yet been reached for some of the actions from the February inspection, actions which were to be immediately implemented in order to reduce the risks had not been implemented in a timely manner. Findings were similar to those found on the previous inspection, and therefore continued to pose a risk to children placed with the service.

Inspectors escalated 13 cases to the child care manager on this inspection to address the safeguarding risks and concerns arising from them. There remained significant delays in the commencement and completion of assessments of relative carers with whom children were placed. While 33 relative carers had now been assigned a link social worker, there remained 42 relative carers without an allocated link social worker, despite assurances provided in February 2017 that this action would be taken as a matter of priority. Furthermore, 27 relative carers still did not have Garda Síochána (police) vetting and 82 foster carers did not have up-to-date Garda vetting.

Following the inspection, HIQA wrote to the Chief Operating Officer of Tusla regarding the risks which had been identified on the previous inspection that remained a risk on this inspection. While a response has been received from the Chief Operating Officer, a further update will be requested in November 2017 in order to ensure the risks identified have been addressed. In December, HIQA will request a further update from the area manager on the implementation of the action plan following the inspection in February 2017.