IRISH children are being placed with foster families without any background checks being carried out.
A new report carried out by the Health Information and Quality Authority revealed that 27 foster families had not been properly garda vetted before being granted fostering of a child.
The inspection of the foster care service in Cork found these were relatives of the children.
In another 82 families there was no up to date vetting of the foster carers, the report revealed.
There had previously been a highly critical report in February which arose out of major failings during an inspection, now a number of serious risks have been identified and of the eight standards inspected against, there were five major non-compliances.
On the return inspection in August actions which were to be immediately implemented in order to reduce the risks had not been implemented in a timely manner.
Inspectors escalated 13 cases to the child care manager on this inspection to address the safeguarding risks and concerns arising from them.
There remained significant delays in starting and completing the vetting of relatives who were fostering children.
“While 33 relative carers had now been assigned a link social worker, there remained 42 relative carers without an allocated link social worker, despite assurances provided in February 2017 that this action would be taken as a matter of priority.”
Following the inspection, HIQA wrote to the Chief Operating Officer of Tusla regarding the risks which had been identified on the previous inspection that remained a risk on this inspection.
