Allegations of abuse and neglect against foster carers in south Dublin were not always properly recorded, tracked or reported to gardaí, the health watchdog has said.
Seventeen allegations were made against foster carers in the Dublin south central area in the 12 months before a four-day inspection by the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) last October.
“No allegation was upheld during the same period, though, at the time of the inspection, a number were still in process,” it said in a report published on Wednesday.
While the majority of such allegations were properly managed, out of a sample of nine of the 17 allegations, the management of two did not follow Tusla processes.
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One had not been assessed effectively and there was delay in notifying gardaí. The second case was an allegation which was not properly tracked.
“Of concern in these cases, case supervision records were poor quality and the errors had not been picked up through monitoring and oversight,” Hiqa said.
No detail of the alleged abuse or child welfare concerns in the cases was provided.
The inspection, conducted between October 20th and 23rd last, followed a February 2024 inspection which found the service “was stretched beyond its capacity”.
The earlier inspection found the foster-care service was “not adequately resourced to ensure all children had an allocated social worker”; non-adherence to several Tusla policies including in safeguarding; and delays in reviewing children’s wellbeing in their foster care placements.
The latest inspection found an “improvement in Dublin south central foster care service” since 2024. In particular, it said, the proportion of children in foster care without an allocated social worker had fallen from 31 to 15 per cent.
The area extends from Ringsend, just south of the Liffey, to Rathfarnham and as far west as Ballyfermot and Clondalkin. It has a population of 73,730 children and includes many areas of significant disadvantage.
At the time of last year’s inspection the area had 150 foster placements, with 274 children in foster care. There were 24 children waiting for a foster placement, of whom 11 had been waiting more than three months.
Some children in foster care were in overcrowded placements, where the number of children exceeded the number stipulated for the home.
“From the cases sampled, there were no risks found in these placements. However, due to the lack of placements in the area, there was a potential risk that children would continue to be placed in foster care placements that were over-numbers,” the report says.
Following the 2024 inspection, Tusla’s national office committed “to allocate additional resources, including staff, to increase capacity” and ensure no child was without an allocated social worker.
However, the 2025 report notes: “Dublin south central had not been allocated any additional staff”. This was despite a business case having been made in January 2025 and staffing shortages remaining on the area’s register of risks it faced.
As a result, the report says; “Some children remained without an allocated worker for long periods of time, and the service was unable to provide foster care ... to all children identified as in need of a placement”.
Of the 42 children who were not allocated a social worker, 15 had been unallocated for three years, while a further eight had been unallocated for two years. They did have either allocated social care workers or a consistent liaison Tusla worker.
New issues since the 2024 inspection, which created risks for the service, included a lack of respite foster placements and insufficient staffing.
“While risks were effectively identified and control measures were put in place, inspectors found that the control measures were not always adequate to effectively address identified risks as a number of these risks remained on the register for years.”
