Tusla spent €14m placing children with unvetted firms
Contracts scrapped with providers
THE CHILD and family agency Tusla spent €14million placing vulnerable children into unregulated emergency accommodation which it later had to stop using after an internal audit highlighted significant problems.
The child and family agency told TDs at a committee yesterday that an issue emerged during an audit and in response it set up a unit to check qualifications in agencies it uses.
It comes after the Irish Times revealed this week how a company that provided emergency accommodation ‘fabricated’ pre-employment screenings of staff, posing a serious risk to vulnerable young people in its care.
The revelations were referred to An Garda Síochána, the Dáil was told this week.
Appearing before the Public Accounts Committee yesterday, Tusla chief executive Kate Duggan said €10million was spent using this company’s services before the problem was flagged.
She said there were two agencies which Tusla has stopped using. Some €4million was spent on the second, unnamed, agency where issues were flagged, bringing the total spent on the two to €14million.
Ms Duggan said the problem had emerged ‘organically’ through the organisation’s ‘double-lock’ auditing of documentation.
The committee was also told there was a €65 million increase in spending on special emergency arrangements (SEAs) over four years, from less than €5 million to €71 million.
Ms Duggan said there had been an increase in the needs of children post-Covid, due to the war in Ukraine and the global movement of people, which had led to an increase in demand for SEAs.
She said following the ‘spike’ in demand, the agency took ‘a much more rigorous approach’ to SEA providers and its own audit system ‘picked up concerns in relation to different agencies’.
Labour TD Alan Kelly told Ms Duggan this was ‘frightening’, ‘very scary stuff’, and that the €65million increase in spending over four years was ‘incredible’.
Ms Duggan said: ‘Within our quality and regulation directorate, we have an internal audit function.
‘So that proactive auditing that we do picked up an issue and then after we thought, we actually can’t just take assurances from these agencies that they have Garda vetting, that they have qualifications. We have to physically set up a unit that checks every one of these manually.’
She said that there are eight people working in this unit.
‘Where those concerns were picked up they were evaluated, they were looked at, and where there was any concern that was creating a risk to a child we ceased operation with that company and if required we referred the matter to An Garda Síochána.’
Asked by Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy how many organisations have been excluded as a consequence of the unit, Ms Duggan said: ‘There are two agencies we’ve stopped engaging with.’
Asked if both organisations were operating on a ‘forprofit’ basis, Ms Duggan said they were.
Ms Duggan said: ‘When an agency provides a service for us, they have to give us an assurance that their staff are Garda-vetted. They have to give an assurance that their staff are qualified.
‘We give out 75% of our funding to community, voluntary and private services. We don’t see a copy of all of the Garda vetting or a copy of all of the qualifications. What we see and what we receive is an assurance. Because of the nature of these [special emergency] arrangements being unregulated, we decided to put in a double lock there.
‘So the double lock was that on top of seeking an assurance, on top of seeking confirmation, we physically got copies of the Garda vetting. We physically looked for copies of the qualifications.’
Ms Duggan said the increase in spending was due to a ‘significant’ increase in demand for SEAs.
She also said the agency is ‘losing more social workers than we are recruiting’.
She said: ‘There is a supply issue. We need about 500 social workers qualifying every year in Ireland. Right now there are 200.’
‘We cannot just take assurances’
‘We put a double lock there’