Aontú TD Peadar Tóibín has expressed serious concern following confirmation that Tusla is unable to provide comprehensive historical data on children who have gone missing from State care.
The Deputy requested information from Tusla on the number of children who have gone missing from care over the past ten years, how long they remained missing, and how many children remained unaccounted for after reaching adulthood. In response to the request, the organisation said that prior to August 2023, information relating to children missing from care was not centrally aggregated and was instead held on individual case files.
“The State should be able to account for every child in its care and should have robust systems in place to identify patterns, trends and risks where children go missing,” Deputy Tóibín said. “Tusla was also asked to provide the number of children reported missing from care in each of the last ten years. However, instead of providing annual figures, the agency supplied point-in-time snapshots showing the number of children missing on specific reporting dates.”
“There is a significant difference between the number of children who are missing on a particular day and the number of children who went missing over the course of a year,” he said. “The questions put to Tusla sought the latter. Unfortunately, it remains unclear how many individual children have gone missing from State care over the last decade.”
He believes that “If Tusla cannot provide annual figures to the Oireachtas on the number of children reported missing from care, that raises serious questions about the State’s ability to monitor and respond to this issue.”