Tusla housing vulnerable children in hotel rooms when no other accommodation is available poses “significant” safety risks, the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) has said.
The State’s health services watchdog inspected the child and family agency’s national out-of-hours service earlier this year, finding that some children were still housed in hotel rooms because Tusla had “very limited access to emergency residential care placements”.
When children are housed in hotel rooms – referred to as Immediate Places of Safety (IPOS) by Tusla – they are supervised by agency social care staff.
“The potential negative impact on the wellbeing of children and additional safeguarding risks for children when placed in unregulated IPOS arrangements was a significant concern,” Hiqa said in a report published on Tuesday.
Staff working in the service “expressed significant concern” about the arrangement, the report added.
Tusla’s out-of-hours service provides an emergency child protection and welfare service when the agency’s local services are closed at night and over weekends.
Hiqa inspected the service between March 24th and April 2nd. Of the nine national standards assessed, the service was found to be not compliant with six standards and substantially compliant with three standards.
The watchdog said the service did not “have a clear purpose and function” and lacked defined governance and management structures.
Hiqa’s report noted that in the 12 months prior to the inspection, a number of audits into service provision were carried out by Tusla. Between July and September 2025, an internal review of eight cases related to IPOS accommodation took place.
“A significant risk was identified in that in all eight cases reviewed [service] staff were unable to cross-check agency staff assigned for care of young people within the IPOS, against Tusla’s central compliance list of approved staff, as they did not have access to this service out of hours,” Hiqa said.
At the time of the inspections in March and April, Hiqa said staff in the out-of-hours service “had not received the necessary access to the compliance register for these basic safeguarding checks on staff”.
Hiqa also said a “risk escalation procedure” had “yet to be approved” for the service, despite this issue being raised at a previous inspection two years ago.
“In addition, risks relating to poor governance systems, identified during the August 2024 inspection, had not been fully addressed,” the report said.
Hiqa said the level of out-of-hours care received by children varied depending on where they lived, stating that an equitable service was not provided to young people living outside Dublin, Kildare and Wicklow.
“The majority of children living outside these areas had limited in-person contact with a social worker when referred [to the service]. These children also faced delays in receiving a service.”
The report said a review undertaken in 2023 “recommended a significant restructuring of the service” to ensure a consistent service was available to all children nationally, but “this had not been progressed”.
The report also highlighted some of the progress made by the service, saying staff “were committed to keeping children safe” and “inspectors saw examples of good quality out-of-hours safeguarding work with children”.
“In the 12 months prior to this inspection, the service had taken positive action relating to the screening of referrals, communication with children, establishment of a system for auditing casework on referrals and the recognition and escalation of risk,” Hiqa said.
“Following the inspection, management submitted a satisfactory compliance plan to Hiqa, which outlined plans to address the issues identified during the inspection.”
Tusla has been contacted for comment.