Tusla has “stopped engaging with” two for-profit agencies that carry out services for it following an audit, a committee has heard.
The child and family agency told TDs that an issue emerged during an audit and in response it set up a unit to check qualifications in agencies it uses.
Tusla chief executive Kate Duggan said on Thursday that the issue was not pointed out but had emerged “organically” through the organisation’s “double lock” auditing of documentation.
“Within our quality and regulation directorate, we have an internal audit function,” she told the Public Accounts committee.
“So that proactive auditing that we do picked up an issue and then after we thought, we actually can’t just take insurances, we cannot just take assurances from these agencies that they have Garda vetting, that they have qualifications, we have to physically set up a unit that checks every one of these manually.”
She said that there are eight people now working in this unit.
The committee was also told there was a €65 million increase in spending on special emergency arrangements (SEAs) over a four-year period, from fewer than five million to 71 million.
Ms Duggan said that as there…
