Advocates call for the full implementation of an expert report on special care, and welcomed plans for legal reform to get state agencies working together.
High-profile stories in the media have flagged the serious harm to children due to the state’s failure to provide them secure care.
The most recent was the case of a 10-year-old girl who went missing from a mainstream care facility and was allegedly sexually assaulted while unsupervised.
The judiciary, from the District Court to the High Court and the Supreme Court, has continually called out the unlawful nature of the Irish state’s failure to provide safe and secure placements for the children in its care.
Terry Dignan, spokesperson for the Children's Residential and Aftercare Voluntary Association, which represents charities that run children’s homes, says that for each case that hits the headlines, many more children are being failed by the system but more quietly.
“There are lots of others who are being hurt and exploited,” he says.
In April 2025, an external review group published a detailed report on how to reform special care – that is, the system where children in the care of the state are detained for their own safety or the safety of others.
There are currently only 15 children in special care, but there should be 26 beds available. The reason, Tusla says, is staffing shortages.
That report pointed to comments made by a High Court judge, Justice John Jordan. Officials in the Department of Public Expenditure had been responsible for refusing to increase salaries for special care staff, when asked in 2019 and again in 2023, he said.
The authors of the report recommended that the government establish a centre of excellence for special care, a new bigger, purpose-built facility with a mix of professional staff, and allowing children to move to lower security care within the facility, when possible.
It also recommended that Tusla re-open high-support units for children with complex needs, which would reduce the need for special care places and allow children who are ready to move on.
A spokesperson for the Department of Children said in January that it has not yet decided on whether to set up a centre for excellence.
It has tendered for a review of international practice in special care, which should be completed within six months, he said.
The spokesperson said it is ramping up capital funding to Tusla and that the agency is working towards creating nine beds in “step-down” facilities this year and next year to facilitate children to move on from special care.
Advocates for children in care welcomed the move towards providing high support step-down homes, as well as promised reform to the law to get state agencies working together on child protection.
But they also called for the full implementation of the recommendations, including a centre of excellence with a multi-disciplinary team.
The Report of the External Review Group on Special Care, commissioned by Tusla, provides an insight into the causes of the crisis.
Many of the children detained in special care have experienced significant trauma, including abuse, neglect or exploitation, says the report. They often have mental illnesses, neurodiversity or learning difficulties.
High-risk behaviour could include self-harm and suicidal ideation, running away, substance-use issues (including dealing and running up drug debts), joyriding and violent behaviour.
Some children are also detained due to “fears of children being groomed into organised criminal activity and being exploited by criminal gangs” and “fears of risk of sexual exploitation”, says the report.
Carol Coulter, executive director of the Child Law Project, says that the shortage of special-care beds has been an issue at least since the project started reporting in the High Court in 2013.
Tusla struggles to staff special care. The job is challenging and high-risk, and until January 2025, it was paid the same as any other social care job, starting at around €37,000 a year.
The units were relying on agency staff at night and bringing in security guards, says the report. They had stopped using security guards at the time of the report but have since resumed, the Irish Times reported last year.
The external report says Tusla had put forward a business case to increase pay for staff in special care in 2019, 2020 and again in 2023, because it was unable to staff the homes.
The proposals in 2019 and 2023 were knocked back by the Department of Public Expenditure, while the Department of Children didn’t put forward the case in 2020, says the report.
Judge Jordan said it was clear that the officials in the Department of Public Expenditure were unwilling to approve a pay increase which might have unwanted ramifications for pay in other parts of the public sector.
“On the evidence, it appeared to the court that the Department quickly made the decision not to sanction the increase in the allowance – and then began to work backwards from there to find reasons for not sanctioning the increase,” he said.
The state’s failure to provide for special care created a situation where High Court orders were not being complied with. It was unacceptable and should not be allowed to continue, he said.
“It is manifestly obvious that there exists, and has for some time existed, a need to make employment in special care units more attractive for staff,” said Justice Jordan, according to the report.
A spokesperson for the Department of Public Expenditure didn’t respond to those points directly.
“Responsibility for the provision of Special Care lies with the Child and Family Agency and the Department of Children, Disability, and Equality, as parent Department,” says the spokesperson.
Dignan says that current and previous Ministers for Children and Ministers for Public Expenditure should be held accountable for the failure of the state as the legal parent to the most vulnerable children in the country.
Going back to 2019, there have been three of each: Katherine Zappone, Roderic O’Gorman and Norma Foley; and Michael McGrath, Pascal Donohoe and Jack Chambers.
“The government should be hauled over the coals,” says Dignan. “How can a government give allowances to every TD who chairs a committee – while they are on a very good salary – and then refuse to give an allowance to people doing one of the hardest jobs in the country?”
Eventually, in January 2025, Tusla increased the pay but it is still struggling to fill special care worker posts. Recently, only 15 of the 26 beds were operational, according to the Independent.
The agency is advertising directly, including on buses, and through employment agencies. It recently put out a call for international workers.
Tusla also provides resources for people thinking of applying for a job in special care, to help them to prepare for the interview, and it runs a paid training scheme for social care graduates.
The External Review Group also recommended that Tusla establish a national centre of excellence.
It should be “a state-of-the-art purpose-built facility with units offering graduated levels of security and supported by a unified multidisciplinary staff team, shared services and research capacity”, says the report.
At the moment, there was no mix of skills among staff in special care as all were social care workers, the report says. A “multidisciplinary team delivering a coherent model of care would benefit the children therapeutically”.
It should also “improve the working conditions for the staff; and aid recruitment and retention difficulties in that it would be more attractive to be part of a dynamic service working with different disciplines”, says the report.
The report recommends looking at examples, including Kibble in Scotland, a large charity-run home that provides education on site and trains its own staff.
The Department of Children spokesperson said that it is still considering whether to establish a centre of excellence here and has commissioned a review of international best practice.
Dignan says he cannot believe the department is launching another review into special care. “They’ve just done a review,” he says. “We saw the recommendations; we don't need another one.”
To fix the crisis in care, the state needs to deliver buildings and provide appropriate salaries and pensions for staff, he says. “You are not going to do it with reports and studies and surveys.”
Wayne Stanley, CEO of Empowering People in Care (EPIC), which advocates for young people in care, says the government should establish the centre for excellence.
“Given the historic and ongoing problems with special care facilities, EPIC is concerned that piecemeal reform is unlikely to provide the kind of investment, expertise and vision required to address the current problems,” says Stanley.
The report also pointed to better facilities available at the children’s detention centre in Oberstown, which has a gym, provides a wide range of education and training and runs personal development programmes in-house, according to its website.
“The development of the Oberstown campus has led to significant advancement in a child-centred approach for children in detention in the criminal justice system,” says Stanley. “It is time that this kind of ambition and level of investment is applied to children in need of special care.”
The report also identified a problem with children getting stuck in special care, which is supposed to be a short-term intervention, even after they should have been discharged, because there was nowhere to move on to. This meant they were being detained for longer than necessary.
“It found that it has become a de facto placement option, with some children being detained for up to two years, largely due to insufficient onward placements and a lack of community-based resources for children who are ready for discharge,” says Stanley. “This is wholly unacceptable.”
The report says that the centre of excellence should be supported by a network of regional high-support units, specialist foster carers, and community-based supports.
It recommends reopening “high support units”, the last of which shut in 2014. Some young people who don’t meet that criteria for special care still need more therapy and supervision than they would get in a mainstream children’s home.
Those in special care, could move on to these facilities, freeing up space in special care.
The Department of Children spokesperson says that it has allocated €17m in capital funding to Tusla for special care and “step down units” over the years 2026 to 2030.
“This will support Tusla in upgrading, renovating or purchasing special care and step-down units,” says the spokesperson.
The agency is working towards delivering nine beds in step-down facilities this year and next year, which will facilitate moving children on from special care, he says.
Coulter, of the Child Law Project, says they have been campaigning on that issue for years.
“I am delighted that this is receiving attention from the Department of Children and Tusla, with new step-down facilities being prepared and increased remuneration for staff in special care units, which hopefully will lead to more beds,” she says.
Dignan and Stanely both welcomed the move to provide some high support beds.
Dignan says that a lot of the children in residential care have undiagnosed neurodivergence, psychiatric issues or learning difficulties.
If those children got the necessary assessments and treatment at an earlier stage, that could prevent them from needing to be detained in special care, he says.
“If a child is referred into residential care, they should be automatically eligible for assessment,” he says.
The external review also called on state agencies to cooperate more to meet the needs of children in the care of the state.
Those could include addictions service and CAHMS under the HSE, An Garda Síochana and Tusla, it said.
The department spokesperson says that the government is set to bring forward an amendment to the Child Care Act 1991.
The Child Care (Amendment) Bill 2025 contains new measures to strengthen inter-agency co-operation and national coordination on child protection and welfare and will come before the Houses of the Oireachtas in the coming weeks, he says.
“Designated public bodies will have a duty to cooperate on child protection matters and be required to proactively share information and collaborate to deliver more coordinated and effective services,” says the spokesperson.
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