The Health Service Executive (HSE) has been accused of failing to comply with its statutory obligations to children at risk.
A number of new inspection reports from the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) found "significant and serious shortcomings" in the HSE's approach to foster care in the Dublin North West and Dublin North Central local health areas.
According to the reports, between a third and a half of the children in foster care in these regions did not have a social worker assigned to them.
In addition, Hiqa uncovered significant deficiencies in the vetting, assessment and approval of carers, serious concerns over child protection practices and poor management of foster care services. It also found “extremely poor record keeping and information management”
Hiqa's reports highlight "a lack of recognition at senior management level that the child care regulations exist to safeguard and protect vulnerable children. The findings in these areas showed an unsafe approach to protecting and safeguarding children."
"This is a series of inspections that I absolutely believe will be a watershed in driving improvements in quality of safeguarding children in Ireland," said Hiqa chief executive Dr Tracey Cooper this morning.
The authority said HSE fostering services in Dublin North West and Dublin North Central were both "in a state of crisis" at the time inspections were carried out in July 2009.
A separate inspection into childcare services in the HSE Dublin North area found foster care practices were mostly safe and well organised.
As a result of serious concerns expressed by Hiqa officials following a cursory investigation, standard inspections of foster care services in both Dublin North West and Dublin North Central were halted last September and only resumed the following month once the process was expanded to include a review of all cases of children in foster care in these areas.
"We had immediate concerns in Dublin North Central areas having found that many children were being cared for by carers who had not been appropriately vetted and many children did not have a social worker nor were they seen by a social worker for significant periods of time, sometimes years," said Dr Cooper.
"The fact that these shortcomings have been known for a number of years and were still present in 2009 and 2010, outline serious deficiencies in the effectiveness of the accountability, governance and management of these services, and the lack of emphasis on a child-centered culture at all levels of the HSE, but more significantly at management level, "she added.
During its inspections, Hiqa officials discovered there was no national up-to-date register of the number of foster carers in the State.
At the time the inspections took place, a total of 5,347 were in foster care placements across the country.
In Dublin North West, where 378 children were found to be in foster care, inspectors notified the HSE of 59 possible child protection concerns arising from its review of case files. In addition, inspectors informed the HSE of possible safeguarding concerns for 54 other children.
Officials found the HSE did not check all children in foster care in the area were being cared for by assessed and approved carers.
Hiqa inspectors discovered that 47 per cent of the children in foster care in Dublin North West did not have a social worker assigned to them and that while the majority of children had been visited by a social worker in the past 12 months, a small number of children had not been seen for more than four years.
Inspectors also found that two children had been left in unsafe placements for a number of years, even though allegations of abuse had been brought to the attention of officials and the children found to have been abused.
In Dublin North Central, where 316 children were in care, inspectors raised safeguarding concerns relating to 38 children.
Officials inspecting services in the area found that 30 per cent of children in foster care had not been assigned a social worker. A total of 191 children in care had been seen by a social workers in the six months prior to the inspection but 53 children had not been visited for a number of years.
Minister for Children and Youth Affairs Barry Andrews said the Hiqa reports "clearly illustrate" the need for the HSE to comply with its statutory obligations to children at risk.
In a statement issued this afternoon, the HSE said progress was being made to address immediate safety concerns about children in foster care.
"The HSE has been working closely with Hiqa over the last number of months to address the issues identified and progress to address the shortcomings are well under way," a spokeswoman said. "Short, medium and long-term issues are being dealt with in a systematic way that ensures that any urgent childcare issues and child protection concerns that emerge are dealt with as a priority.
