Foster carers are still not being adequately vetted by the Garda Síochána, according to a new report from the Health Information and Quality Authority.
The authority says the Health Service Executive cannot say how many carers it has yet to approve or how many of them have children placed with them. It also says it cannot say how many carers have been assigned their own link social worker.
The report on foster care services for over 5,000 children follows HIQA's disturbing revelations in July that, in parts of Dublin, children were being left in unsafe placements for years despite evidence of child protection concerns.
The report assesses the HSE's performance in implementing HIQA's 12 recommendations for the fostering service nationwide.
Inspectors are concerned that more progress has not been made in safeguarding and protecting children.
The slow pace in developing national registers of foster-children and their carers also gives rise to concerns as does the inadequate progress towards assigning a social worker to each child.
HIQA welcomes the HSE's appointment of a National Director of Children and Family Services along with the Executive's recruitment of 200 additional social workers. It also lauds the strengthening in some areas of the HSE's own monitoring of services.
However, the inspectors were seriously concerned about the HSE's ‘significant failure’ to provide evidence of its monitoring officers' reports.
HIQA says it will be carrying out further inspections to assess progress in implementing its recommendations.
