I thank the Cathaoirleach and members for the invitation to appear before the committee today. I am joined by my colleagues Pat Smyth, national director of finance and corporate services, Crona Barry, head of financial excellence and governance, Rosarii Mannion, national director of people and change and Gerry Hone, national director of services and integration. We welcome the opportunity to assist the committee in its important work of scrutinising the use of public resources and ensuring accountability for the delivery of public services.
As chief executive, I am conscious that we are entrusted with significant public funding and with significant responsibility for children, young people and families, often during the most difficult and vulnerable times in their lives. That responsibility requires us to demonstrate not only that public money is properly accounted for but also that it is being used effectively to achieve better outcomes for children and families. My commitment is to be open and transparent with all stakeholders in relation to our services, the progress made, the challenges we face, areas for further improvement and, most importantly, our absolute commitment to continually improve our services.
Tusla provides a broad range of services across the country, working in every community across Ireland, either directly or though one of the 597 community and voluntary organisations that we fund. Approximately 60% of our work is preventative. Through family support, educational welfare, early intervention and community-based services, we engage with and support thousands of children and families right across Ireland each year in the context of promoting their well-being and development. During 2025, we responded to over 106,000 child protection and welfare referrals, an increase of more than 100% since the agency’s establishment in 2014 and an annual increase of 10% on 2024. At the end of 2025, we had almost 6,000 children and young people in State care. Almost nine in ten children in care were cared for by 3,529 foster carers. A further 526 live in residential care homes, supported by professionals from Tusla and our partners. A total of 94% of our children in care were engaged in education and 81% of those transitioning to aftercare remaining in education or training or securing employment.
In 2025, as part of our commitment to reduce reliance on private providers, we opened 38 additional statutory beds, with a further 57 beds expected to open across late 2026 and 2027. We recently announced significant progress in provision and governance of temporary emergency placements, to replace special emergency arrangements. These measures strengthen compliance with standards, improve oversight, and ensure that emergency placements are safer, regulated and operating fully within the legislative framework of the Child Care Act 1991.
In 2025, we also received almost 800 referrals to our separated children seeking international protection, SCSIP, service, a 500% increase in referrals, while caring for or accommodating approximately 1,200 unaccompanied minors. In providing special care, we remain committed to increasing our staffing levels, to enable us to open more special care beds. We regret sincerely that despite our best efforts that we have been unable to meet our statutory and legal obligations in relation to special care provision. We are more confident that our ongoing efforts, combined with the new initiatives outlined in our special care strategic programme, that we will be able to increase special care capacity in 2027.
The demand for all of our services continues to grow, and the complexity of the needs of many children and families we engage with and support has increased significantly. We are operating in an environment of demographic and social change, workforce and property pressures, increasing complexity of need and constraints in the availability of appropriate placements and specialist supports such as addiction, mental health and disability. These factors have consequences both for service delivery and for providing services.
While managing this increased demand across our services, we have implemented significant reform in the agency over the last three years, to improve outcomes for children and families, to better support our workforce, to maximise efficiencies and ensure better value for money. Services are now integrated, closer to the communities they serve, with more equitable access to supports based on population needs and levels of disadvantage. Our workforce is more stable, with new supply routes through the social work and social care apprenticeships, we are recruiting more foster carers and we have completed a significant digital transformation programme, including the development a Tusla case management system, a single digital integrated file for all children, all delivered in house and within budget allocation.
For 2026, Tusla's total budget is €1.44 billion. Thanks to the support of the Minister, Deputy Foley, and her Department, compared with 2025, the budget increased by approximately €188 million, primarily to cover residential costs across separated children seeking international protection, and mainstream special care services, to support foster care, to cover existing levels of service, inflationary pressures, and workforce costs. Approximately 46% of our budget is being spent on providing care placements, with residential care cost of €487 million and foster care costs of €180 million. As CEO, I am clear that increased investment must be accompanied by increased accountability. We must be able to demonstrate what additional resources are delivering, understand where expenditure is exceeding plan and intervene early where performance is not where it should be.
A key focus for the executive management team has been strengthening the connection between funding, workforce, activity, performance and outcomes. This includes improving financial and workforce planning, strengthening performance management and governance, developing more consistent approaches to resource allocation, and ensuring that managers at every level understand their responsibility for both service and financial performance.
This year, the agency is delivering annualised cost savings of over €112.7 million as a result of decisions we have taken to achieve value for money. This is equivalent to more than 8.5% of our annual funded allocation and reflects Tusla's continued commitment to maximising the effective stewardship of public resources and our commitment to ensuring that every euro spent by the agency delivers better outcomes for children and families and maximum value for the taxpayer.
At this point, we anticipate that we will deliver our service plan for 2026 within our allocated resource. However, the demand for placements for at-risk children remains very high. Any further cost containment beyond the measures already taken would significantly impact front-line services and placements, impacting directly on services to the most vulnerable children in the State. Financial management cannot be considered separately from the reality of delivering child and family services. Some of the greatest pressures facing the agency arise in areas where demand is increasing and where suitable services or placements are difficult to secure. These pressures can have significant financial consequences, but they also have very real consequences for children and families. Our responsibility is to seek to address these pressures in a way that is both financially stable and firmly focused on the best interests of children.
Tusla is a large and complex national organisation operating in an environment of increasing demand, significant work pressures and growing complexity of need. We have made important progress in strengthening services, governance and organisational capability. However, I also acknowledge that there remain areas where our performance must further improve, enabling better outcomes for all children and families, further growing and developing our front-line services to ensure that we meet all of our statutory and legal obligations, better supporting our foster carers, seeking to strive a better balance between statutory, community and voluntary and private provision and further strengthening oversight of third-party providers. I am confident that as we reflect on progress made, and in the context of our current focus on developing our next corporate plan, we will improve our performance in these areas. None of this work would be possible without the commitment of our staff, foster carers and partners across the community and voluntary sector. Every day, they work with professionalism, compassion and dedication to support children and families in Ireland.
I thank the committee. I will be happy to take questions.
