The treatment of vulnerable children in the care of the State is an ongoing horror and scandal. Yesterday The Irish Times reported from the High Court on the shocking cases of three of these children. A 14-year-old girl who has mild learning difficulties is being subjected to horrific sexual exploitation by multiple men. The girl has been approached by men who gave her alcohol, cocaine and other drugs. Tusla and the Government are fully aware of the depraved sexual abuse of this girl, which is happening because Tusla is unable to provide her with a bed in a special care unit. She is 14 years old. Another girl is also currently being sexually exploited by a large number of men. She has been seen on social media distressed and under the influence of drugs. Again, this girl is also in State care where she is supposed to be protected and cared for. Instead, she is being subjected to vile and disgusting sexual abuse. Tusla and the Government are fully aware that this is happening and are effectively saying they cannot do anything about it. Another child, a 16-year-old boy, is involved in criminality and is taking and selling drugs. He was holding large quantities of heroin and crack cocaine for older men. Gardaí have now seized these drugs and he is in very serious danger. Again, there is no special care place available for this vulnerable boy.

The Taoiseach told my Social Democrats colleague, Deputy Quaide, yesterday that nearly half of the State's 26 special care beds remain closed because of staffing shortages. Those staffing shortages have existed since 2018, for eight years. There has never been a time when all 26 beds have been open. How many children have been failed by the State during all of those years? How many children have gotten hooked on drugs, been pulled into criminality, or been sexually exploited and raped? Successive Governments have tolerated this abject failure of children that the State is supposed to protect. An article in The Irish Times today reports that Tusla's new plan to tackle this crisis is to reduce the number of children it takes into special care. This is a shocking approach to take. What is happening on this Government's watch is an outrage and the current approach to addressing it is not working. It has not worked for the last eight years. It is not acceptable to use staffing shortages as an excuse. Children are being failed and the Government must act. What is the Taoiseach going to do to protect them? Does he agree with the Tusla plan to reduce the number of children it takes into special care?

First of all, as I said yesterday, the case of the young girl referred to in yesterday's reports is deeply serious and extremely worrying. We are engaging across government with the Minister, Deputy Foley, on this specific case and other special care cases, some of which Deputy O'Callaghan has raised. We will do everything we possibly can to protect vulnerable children. Those men and people who are exploiting children need to be pursued rigorously also and brought to justice.

There is an enormous increase in demand on child protection and welfare services. It is not an excuse but there are very significant issues in terms of recruitment and retention of special care workers. In 2025 alone there was a 10% increase in referrals and they increased by a further 11% in the first quarter of 2026. Referrals have more than doubled since 2014. We have responded with sustained investment so it is not a resources issue. We have increased Tusla's budget to about €1.4 billion in 2027 and have expanded overall staffing by over 343.

The special care area serves to protect and engage with a very small cohort of young people with the most acute and complex needs. Those settings require exceptionally high staffing ratios and specialist expertise. There has to be at least one staff member per child throughout the day, in addition to supervisory staff and the units obviously have to be covered on a 24-7 basis. That means seven individuals for every one young person. Children with particularly complex needs may require up to twice that level of staffing, or 14 staff to one individual child or young person. Currently, 15 of the 26 special care beds are staffed. The complexity of these cases is why Tusla has focused on workforce reform in the last number of years. Changes have occurred in an effort to increase staff numbers in terms of grading and so on. I will not go into the detail of that now. The changes are significant enough in terms of dealing with the recruitment issue and are delivering results. Tusla has successfully filled five new social care manager posts, two deputy social care manager posts and 20 special care worker roles as of September. We also have to create stronger care pathways so that young people can transition to more appropriate settings when ready, helping to maximise the use of special care capacity. Two new step-down units will open by the end of this year, with a third opening in early 2027.

I asked whether the Taoiseach agrees with the Tusla plan to actually reduce the number of children taken into special care. Does he think that is an appropriate response, not to meet the need that is there and not to provide a sufficient level of staffing? What are his thoughts on that and what specifically is he going to do about this? These shortages have been going on for eight years. There have been at least nine High Court judgments on this issue over those eight years calling out the lack of response from the State. It is not acceptable. On staffing shortages, I am sure there are challenges but they need to be addressed. The Government and the Taoiseach need to ensure that those staffing shortages are addressed so that children in these dire situations get the care that they need. It is not acceptable to say that this is difficult and it is not getting addressed. We have had eight years of successive Governments not tackling this. What specifically is the Taoiseach going to do to fix this? What is his view on Tusla's plan to reduce the number of special care places?

I do not agree that nothing has been done over the last number of years. The services have expanded. I just want to make the point, and I say this in the most objective sense, that we need to be careful around the interaction of the courts, the Oireachtas, the Government and proper policy. Policy resides in here. What I mean by that is that over three decades we have been deinstitutionalising care.

That is the fundamental direction of travel that I think everyone in the House agrees with. That does not mean we do not have institutionalisation. We do, in this case for specific care needs of children. I remember being Minister for Health and Children in the early 2000s when many court orders came in threatening jail for Ministers. What was coming to us was directly contrary to the policy position outlined by a unit in the Department at that time.

Does the Taoiseach agree that these children need special care?

Will the Deputy hear my point? We need to be mindful of that. I fully accept the judge's decision. I have no issue with sending the details to the Minister. That is fine. We need to be careful that we protect the overall policy idea of not institutionalising every issue pertaining to children.