The Health Information and Quality Authority, HIQA, report on the operation of the Child and Family Agency, Tusla, which was brought by the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Zappone, to Cabinet has just been published. As we know, the report was initiated on foot of Tusla's catastrophic mishandling of allegations made against Garda whistleblower, Maurice McCabe. I understand the report is damning and outlines dysfunction and deficiencies within Tusla in the areas of staffing, systems, reporting and governance. I understand it highlights the alarming reality that Tusla has serious difficulties in recruiting and retaining specialist staff, in particular, social workers. The report also points to resourcing problems and the inability of Tusla to respond appropriately to cases of alleged or suspected child abuse. The unacceptable result of this catalogue of failure is that the Child and Family Agency is not adequately protecting children at ongoing risk. This means that children are knowingly being left in danger.

The Taoiseach may recall that when I raised the horrific Galway foster home rape case with him in April, I said the State's failure of children was a damning indictment on our political system. I also said it would not be long before we would be back here to discuss yet another failure, and here we are. There are children at increased risk today due to the culture of dysfunction in Tusla. This has been compounded by the Government's failure to act and properly resource a responsive and effective Child and Family Agency. It is clear that we need to see a radical step change when it comes to recruiting and retaining social workers. In January last, the Committee of Public Accounts highlighted the high staff turnover rates at Tusla. Despite hiring 250 new staff, the net gain was only 18 due to the high numbers of staff leaving the agency.

This is an issue we have raised time and again with the Minister. In May we learned that over 4,000 children referred to Tusla were waiting to be allocated a social worker. We need to see dramatic improvements, but we also need to see accountability for the litany of failures contained in today's report. In order to change the culture in Tusla there first has to be accountability. All of this is happening on the Taoiseach's watch. The diagnosis is clear: Tusla, as it stands, is not fit for purpose and what we now need are solutions to ensure the children at risk will be properly protected. What does the Taoiseach plan to do to address the chronic shortage of social workers in the system? The HIQA report published today was commissioned a year ago. The Government and all of us knew at that stage that there were very big problems. We also know that a year is a very long time in the life of a vulnerable child. What measures were taken in the interim to minimise the danger to children at ongoing risk?

The report does not deal with matters before the disclosures tribunal. It was, however, prompted by issues being dealt with by the tribunal. The Government accepts the report that was approved by the Cabinet today. Tusla accepts the report which will be implemented in full and its representatives will be before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Children and Youth Affairs this week to account for it. I commend the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Katharine Zappone, for commissioning the report in the first place and HIQA for carrying it out.

As a Government and a society, we have many obligations and responsibilities towards our youngest and most vulnerable citizens, paramount among which is ensuring they are not subject to abuse, whether sexual, physical, emotional or neglect. Therefore, having a properly functioning child protection system is a concern for us all, which is why the report was commissioned. I appreciate that it was published in the past hour or so and that Deputies have not yet a had a proper chance to read or study it, but in respect of recruitment and resources, it is important to quote from the report. It states there was abundant evidence of considerable financial investment that the Department of Children and Youth Affairs and Tusla's board and executive had made in staff recruitment and training and developing a more service demand model of staff allocation across its service. While it does raise issues surrounding the difficulty in recruiting and retaining social workers, the report acknowledges in black and white the fact that there is abundant evidence of considerable financial investment made by the Government and the agency in staff recruitment. Tusla's Exchequer funding for this year is €753 million, a €14 million increase on the figure for last year, a considerable increase by any measure.

The Deputy asked what specific actions were being taken or which had already been initiated or set in train. The Minister has directed Tusla to produce an action plan as recommended by HIQA setting out the steps required to implement the recommendations, together with clear timelines for doing exactly this. She is also going to appoint an independent expert quality assurance and oversight group to drive and monitor implementation in order that we will know what is happening. The group will publish regular updates on its work. The Minister has also advised that, in line with HIQA's report, she is prioritising several major initiatives to reform the way Tusla and An Garda Síochána deal with historical allegations of child sexual abuse and to support Tusla's workforce needs by creating formal career path mechanisms for students and graduates. She will meet the board of Tusla in the coming days. Many of the actions needed to implement the report's findings were already under way at the time the investigation was started and I might be able to go through them in my next time slot.

The McCabe incident which, of course, we are not going to discuss here triggered the report and investigation, but the difficulties in Tusla were well known and had been well recorded in advance of them. What is of deep concern is what seems to be the scale of the systems failure within the agency on matters people would regard as the basics.

It is not that sophisticated systems seem to have failed here but that even the basics were not right in terms of reporting, recording and proper communications and standards.

I appreciate that an action plan will be published. I understand it will be made public and will be available on the Tusla website. I assume the Taoiseach and the Minister are giving an absolute commitment to ensure the action plan is actioned. However, a question remains on the issue of accountability and I ask the Taoiseach to address it. I will study the report carefully but I understand it catalogues massive failures at every level. I want to know who is to be held accountable for that.

The report catalogues failures and enormous shortcomings in Tusla and in child protection. The Deputy is right that these are often problems that we have known about for some time. It is a major job and effort to do the transformation that has occurred in recent years.

We cannot make these improvements soon enough, but I will give the Deputy an idea of where we have come from in only the past seven or eight years. We established a Department for Children and Youth Affairs and a dedicated agency, Tusla. When Tusla was set up it took on the full legacy left by the Health Service Executive and the health boards. We have put the rights of children in the Constitution. As I pointed out, we have increased resources for Tusla by €40 million in the past year. We successfully brought in mandatory reporting only at the end of last year.

The Deputy is right that the problems that exist around child protection are well known. However, they are being dealt with over time and we will continue to deal with them. I will give examples of some of the things done in recent months. In April a new chief social worker was appointed, so there is someone now very much in charge of social work. That person is key to ensuring that policy is being developed and implemented. In July a new information and communications technology recording system for child protection and welfare went operational on a nationwide basis for the first time. Joint work with the Garda is very important, especially when it comes to retrospective allegations, and improvements have been made in this area. The report finds that good governance arrangements are now in place at corporate and executive levels.