Children in Care
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-17
============================================================

Mattie McGrath (IND), Tipperary South

Of course, we all want to see the optimal result. We do not want to see any children to be involved in antisocial and disruptive behaviour but unfortunately there are. The Minister gave a nice flowery answer there that she is responsible for the welfare of children and not if they are offending but they are both intrinsically linked. Does the Minister have concern about the increasing number of young people engaging in persistent antisocial and offending behaviour? What does she intend to do about the situation and the cause of that trend? Is she satisfied that Tusla, schools, youth services and other State agencies have the resources and supports necessary to intervene effectively with at-risk children?
We also know a lot of children in the care of Tusla and the State have gone missing in the past couple of years. That is an appalling vista. The Minister’s answer here is not really helpful. We need to get to the bottom of this. It is a growing trend and it is worrying. While the vast majority of children do not do this - and we are delighted about that; it is great – we need to have accountability.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-09-17/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:48+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-09-17