The Journal reports Tusla CEO says secure care demand for girls is rising

What happened

According to The Journal, the chief executive of Tusla, Kate Duggan, says demand for secure accommodation for girls at risk of grooming and sexual exploitation is rising. The Journal reports that the Child and Family Agency was found in contempt of court for failing to place three children in such care. The outlet says Duggan spoke to it and another reporter at Tusla’s third annual Child Care and Law Conference. This is a single-outlet report, and the figures below are attributed to The Journal and to Duggan, not independently verified.

• The Journal reports that secure care means short-term, locked therapeutic residential services where children can be placed for up to three months.
• According to The Journal, just 13 of the 26 special care beds available to Tusla are currently operational. It says staff recruitment difficulties prevent more places from opening, including where a judge has deemed secure care necessary.
• Duggan says about seven staff members are needed for every young person in special care.
• The Journal reports that Duggan says Tusla representatives attended the High Court and presented evidence of the efforts to open more beds.
• According to The Journal, Duggan says a new IT system, introduced as part of Tusla’s reform programme, means court orders made about a child are present on their file.
• The Journal reports that this follows an inquiry by Dublin District Court Judge Conor Fottrell. It says the review found 395 children without an allocated social worker for more than four weeks, 245 children who did not receive statutory child-in-care reviews on time, 79 foster placements with no allocated fostering link worker for more than four weeks, and 12 children in foster care who did not receive statutory social work visits.
• Duggan says 30 different locations have been brought under Tusla governance this year, so they will be subject to inspections by the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA), according to The Journal.

Am I affected?

The source describes a child protection and staffing story. It reports no vulnerability, CVE, malware, data breach or exploitation. Whether the new IT system has any security implications is not confirmed. The article only says it records court orders on a child’s file.

Readers likely to care are people working with Tusla, the courts or child protection services in Ireland. For software and infrastructure teams, nothing in the source requires patching or configuration changes.

What to do now

1. Read the original report in The Journal for the full context and Duggan’s statements.
2. If you work with Tusla or similar services, follow your organisation’s own guidance. The source gives none.
3. Treat this as a single-outlet report. Check for further coverage or official statements before relying on the figures.

Sources

• The Journal: Tusla faces growing demand for secure care places for girls at risk of exploitation