Dr Carol Coulter

The reports, published online, include cases where judges deplored the number of children without allocated social workers, considered the plight of those in unsuitable placements and where placements had broken down, and ruled on cases of severe neglect and where children with additional needs were taken into state care as their families are not able to look after them.

Parental drug addiction, mental health issues and domestic violence continue to feature among the reasons for the Tusla seeking care orders. A number of cases concern teenage children whose behaviour puts them and members of the public at risk, and opens them to the danger of involvement in criminality. A significant number of the children taken into care have additional needs.

The reports include a number of cases where children who had suffered neglect or injury in their parents’ care are now thriving in foster care and overcoming early development delays.

The 77-report volume is the first published since July 2024, when the Child Law Project ceased reporting because its contract with the Department of Children expired in October 2024. The Department issued a new tender for reporting in March 2025, which was again won by the Child Law Project, and it resumed reporting in May 2025.

A number of issues are clear from the cases in the volume, the Child Law Project said this morning.

These include the severe pressure being experienced by Tusla in providing appropriate placements for vulnerable children, especially those with complex needs; the shortage of social workers, such that some children in care have none allocated to them; and delays in assessing the needs of children with behavioural problems and disabilities and the lack of appropriate supports.

In one case, a young girl was repeatedly sexually assaulted when she absconded from a “special emergency arrangement”. While Tusla acknowledged that special care (where a child is detained for their own welfare and safety) should be considered, no special care bed was available for her at the time. This applied in a number of other cases where children were at risk.

A number of unaccompanied minors were taken into care by Tusla. While the majority were male, the cases reported include one where a young girl was trafficked into Ireland for sexual exploitation and was found on the street, in poor health, by a member of the public. In another case, a newborn baby was taken into care where her mother, who suffered from mental illness, was suspected of being a victim of trafficking.

Both in Dublin and in a provincial city, the court heard of dozens of children who did not have an allocated social worker.

In Dublin, the court asked Tusla for an audit of cases where children in care had no social worker despite court direction. Some 685 breaches of these court orders were identified.

In the provincial city, the judge reviewed 30 cases where children were unallocated to social workers for a number of months. The judge went through the information she obtained in questionnaires on each case. In a number of these, a Section 47 direction had been made seeking an allocated social worker. The judge appointed a guardian ad litem (GAL) for the children without a social worker.

The volume also includes cases where the intervention of Tusla dramatically improved the situation of children at risk. A striking example of this involved a baby who suffered severe non-accidental injuries while in the care of their parents, and was put into interim care direct from hospital; two years later, when a full care order was made, this child was reported to be thriving in foster care and meeting his developmental milestones.

The challenges posed for parents by having multiple children with additional needs were illustrated by one case where five children in a family, where the parents were separated, were autistic. Three of them were taken into care under interim care orders. This was one of a number of cases where the children had additional needs and the parents, often parenting alone, could not cope.

Dr Carol Coulter, director of the Child Law Project, said: “The fact that some children with a high level of additional needs are taken into care when their parents cannot cope underlines the need for a whole-of-government approach to dealing with disability, especially among children.”

Several cases saw newborn babies being taken into care. Frequently this was as a result of drug abuse by the mother, with the baby suffering from drug withdrawal at birth. In one highly contested case, however, there was no parental drug abuse, but Tusla considered that the mother, who had come to Ireland from the UK and was autistic, suffered from mental health issues that put her baby at risk. This case is continuing.