31/07/2026
๐๐ง ๐๐๐๐, ๐๐ฎ๐ฌ๐ฅ๐ ๐๐ข๐ ๐๐จ๐ญ ๐๐ฎ๐๐ฅ๐ข๐ฌ๐ก ๐ ๐๐ข๐ง๐ ๐ฅ๐ ๐๐๐ฉ๐จ๐ซ๐ญ ๐จ๐ง ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐๐๐๐ญ๐ก ๐จ๐ ๐ ๐๐ก๐ข๐ฅ๐ ๐จ๐ซ ๐๐จ๐ฎ๐ง๐ ๐๐๐ซ๐ฌ๐จ๐ง ๐๐ง๐จ๐ฐ๐ง ๐ญ๐จ ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐๐ ๐๐ง๐๐ฒ
The National Review Panel examines deaths and serious incidents involving children and young people who were in care, receiving aftercare or known to Tuslaโs child protection services. Its 2025 annual report, alongside individual case reviews published this week, provides a troubling picture of vulnerable children encountering systems that can be overstretched, fragmented or too slow to respond.
Twenty-three deaths were notified to the NRP during 2025, four more than in 2024. None of the 23 children or young people was in State care when they died. Four were receiving aftercare services and 19 were living in their communities and known to social work services.
That distinction matters. These figures should not be misrepresented as 23 children dying โin Tusla careโ, nor does notification to the NRP mean that Tusla caused or contributed to a death.
But accuracy should not become a means of avoiding the questions these cases raise.
One concerned a young child known to Tusla who died accidentally while waiting to be allocated a social worker. The period he had spent on that waiting list was described as โunacceptableโ.
Another concerned a young man who died aged 20 while in aftercare. He had been known to Tusla during childhood because of addiction difficulties affecting both himself and his mother. According to the review, he did not receive the benefit of a child protection conference until approximately three years after his first overdose and only months after a second near-fatal overdose.
Those findings speak to something larger than individual cases. A child protection system cannot protect children merely by knowing they exist. A referral, an open file or a place on a waiting list is not protection. Protection requires somebody having the capacity and time to act.
Of the 23 deaths notified in 2025, five resulted from natural causes, four from su***de, three from homicide and three from accidents. Eight remained of unknown cause. Five of those who died were babies under 12 months.
The Panel was also notified of 12 serious incidents. These included children who were allegedly neglected or abused, sexually exploited, injured or exposed to potentially harmful situations. Two were in care and ten were known to social work services.
The longer-term figures are even more sobering.
Between February 2010 and the end of 2025, 357 deaths of children and young people in care, aftercare or known to child protection services were notified to the National Review Panel.
Of those, 152 were from natural causes, 78 from su***de, 56 from accidents, 17 from drug overdose and 16 from homicide. Thirty-eight were recorded as unknown.
Again, context is essential. Almost 80 per cent were living at home rather than in State care. Thirty-seven were in care when they died and a further 35 were in the aftercare category. Many had contact with other State systems, including health, mental health and youth justice services. Tuslaโs involvement varied considerably.
But one figure deserves particular attention: 78 young people died by su***de.
Their ages ranged from 12 to 23, but the concentration among teenagers is striking. Fifty-three of the 78 su***de deaths occurred between the ages of 15 and 18.
The National Review Panelโs assessment of the response available to some of these young people is stark.
Many had been referred to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services. Yet the Panel highlights the gap facing young people who are suicidal or self-harming but do not meet the eligibility threshold for a diagnosed treatable mental illness.
A young person can self-harm, be admitted to hospital, be referred to CAMHS and subsequently be discharged because they are not considered to meet its criteria.
The Panel concludes that referral of young people with suicidal ideation to CAMHS โcontinues to be generally ineffectiveโ.
That sentence should demand the attention of policymakers.
What is a frightened parent, social worker, teacher or young person supposed to do when a child is expressing suicidal thoughts but the specialist mental health service may conclude that the child does not meet its threshold?
This is not solely a Tusla problem. It is a State problem. Children do not experience their lives according to departmental boundaries. A vulnerable teenager does not care whether responsibility rests with Tusla, the HSE, CAMHS or a hospital. They need a system that responds to their needs rather than one in which eligibility criteria determine which institutional door will open.
There is another issue in this report that deserves equal attention: transparency.
During 2025, the National Review Panel submitted 20 reports to Tusla. The Panel recommended against publication in only one. There were concerns about potential identification in two cases and, in another, the Attorney General advised against publication because of an ongoing criminal investigation.
Yet Tusla published no NRP reports during 2025.
The NRP may make recommendations about publication, but ultimately Tusla decides whether reports are published and when. There are legitimate considerations, including the wishes of families, identification risks and criminal proceedings.
But there is a fundamental difference between protecting families from identification and keeping important findings about public services from public view.
The purpose of reviewing a childโs death cannot simply be to produce another document for an institutional file. Reviews matter because they are supposed to identify what went wrong, what should change and how similar tragedies might be prevented.
At the end of 2025, 37 NRP reviews remained ongoing. Since its establishment, the Panel has submitted reports concerning the deaths of 163 children and young people and serious incidents involving another 33. Yet summaries of only 90 NRP reports had been published by the time this annual report was prepared.
There is something uncomfortable about a system in which Tusla commissions an independent Panel to examine deaths involving children known to its services, receives the resulting reports and retains the ultimate decision over publication.
The decision to place the National Review Panel on a statutory footing is therefore welcome and overdue. It has operated on a non-statutory basis since 2010 despite examining some of the most serious circumstances involving children and State services. Its statutory independence must be meaningful, and publication should form part of that reform.
None of this means every tragedy could have been prevented. It would be irresponsible to suggest otherwise. Children die from natural causes, accidents and circumstances over which professionals may have little or no control.
But the individual findings cannot be ignored.
A child waiting an โunacceptableโ length of time for a social worker is not merely a statistic about staffing pressures. A vulnerable young person experiencing repeated overdoses who waits years for a child protection conference represents more than an administrative delay. A suicidal teenager unable to access appropriate mental health intervention because they do not fit eligibility criteria exposes a gap through which vulnerable children can fall.
Ireland does not lack reviews, reports, recommendations or inquiries into what happens when vulnerable children encounter State services.
The question is what happens afterwards.
The true measure of the National Review Panel should never be how many reports it completes. The measure must be whether its findings are visible, whether recommendations are acted upon and whether the same failures recur.
Behind these 357 notifications are individual lives. Behind the 78 su***de deaths are families who lost sons and daughters. Behind every serious incident is a child whose experience should teach the State something.
If we are serious about learning from these cases, those lessons cannot remain buried in reports the public never sees.
Accountability begins with knowing what went wrong. Reform begins with ensuring that, when the next vulnerable child needs help, the State responds differently.
