Kevin K. Conroy

IRELAND’S CHILD PROTECTION SYSTEM IS A GAME OF JENGA – CHILDREN LEFT IN GRAVE DANGER AS TUSLA AND STATE AGENCIES FAIL TO DELIVER PROTECTION A damning commentary by Sinéad O’Sullivan argues that decades of institutional failure, fragmented responsibility and staffing shortages have left vulnerable children exposed to sexual exploitation, serious drug abuse and potentially fatal harm. O’Sullivan formerly headed the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness at Harvard Business School. In today’s Irish Times, she highlights three disturbing High Court cases in which children urgently requiring special care could not be accommodated despite court orders directing their protection. One involves a 14-year-old girl being severely sexually exploited by a group of men. Another concerns a boy who vomited 37 bags of crack cocaine concealed from Gardaí. He is also using fentanyl and faces serious risk of death from drug use or drug debts. Judge John Jordan stated that the boy would not be using fentanyl had Tusla complied with the court order requiring his placement in special care. A third case involves a 17-year-old girl found unresponsive on a roadside. She attended hospital complaining of pelvic pain but could not remember what had happened. Despite the seriousness of these cases, Tusla could not provide the court-ordered placements. Ireland has 26 designated special care beds, but only 13 were operational in October because of staffing shortages. HIQA has also prohibited further admissions to Crannog Nua, the State’s largest special care unit, because of continuing staffing and safety concerns. O’Sullivan argues that the failures are not simply about money or facilities. They reflect a dysfunctional system in which responsibility is scattered across seven State bodies. These include Tusla, the Department of Children, the Department of Public Expenditure, the HSE, HIQA, the courts and the Department of Justice. Each has its own leadership, budgets and priorities, but no single authority is ultimately accountable for ensuring vulnerable children receive protection. O’Sullivan compares this arrangement to a game of Jenga, with responsibilities distributed across institutions, leaving dangerous gaps when their functions fail to connect. Tusla received 106,444 referrals in 2025, more than double the number a decade earlier. The article describes this as approximately one referral for every 23 children in Ireland, although referrals do not necessarily represent individual children. Tusla’s 2026 budget stands at €1.46 billion, an increase of €188 million, alongside reported cost savings of €112.7 million. O’Sullivan questions how such expenditure can coexist with staffing shortages, unavailable beds and court findings of non-compliance. She challenges the assumption that more funding alone will resolve the crisis, arguing that housing shortages and wider public-service capacity problems undermine recruitment and retention of essential workers. Another powerful argument concerns the normalisation of institutional failure. Ireland has become so accustomed to crises in housing, healthcare and child protection that even children facing life-threatening circumstances no longer generate the public outrage they should. Children already facing sexual exploitation, addiction and criminal influences must now confront another obstacle: the State institutions legally responsible for protecting them. O’Sullivan calls for immediate structural reform, including a single oversight body and an identifiable individual accountable when children are denied legally required protection. She also demands an urgent accounting of how many children the State was legally obliged to protect but failed to safeguard. Her central message is that Ireland’s child protection crisis is not simply about inadequate resources. Responsibility is so fragmented that children can suffer devastating harm while nobody is ultimately held accountable.