Dunne Counselling&Psychotherapy

12/02/2026

Rogers!

08/02/2026

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08/02/2026

Well done to LDAS, it is frightening to hear from some young people what they think is acceptable in their relationships.
More education is needed and its great to see such a wonderful service providing education to our young people.

https://www.facebook.com/share/1D2yHsQ9by/

We are kicking off Valentine's week with our Schools Education Officer Carmel going out to schools in Laois Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to talk to teenagers and young people about Healthy relationships and how to recognise unhealthy dynamics in relationships for teenagers. One in 5 young women, and one in 11 young men will experience or have experience abuse in their relationships according to research carried out by Women's Aid.

The week will finish on Friday in 13th February in Laois Shopping where Carmel and out Children and Young Person's worker Sisi will host a stand from 1 - 5. please come down and show your support. We will be selling little parcels of love hearts for your loved ones on the day to raise money for our service.

Thank you all from LDAS

06/02/2026

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𝐂𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐞 𝐁𝐲𝐫𝐧𝐞’𝐬 𝐭𝐰𝐨 𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐓𝐮𝐬𝐥𝐚 𝐟𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐲’𝐬 𝐜𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐜 𝐝𝐲𝐬𝐟𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐝𝐢𝐝 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐥𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐚 𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐥𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐚𝐧𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐓𝐮𝐬𝐥𝐚 𝐢𝐭𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟.

Over two days on the Claire Byrne Show, Newstalk’s Josh Crosby presented a detailed examination of Tusla, combining statistics, oversight findings and powerful personal testimony.

Yesterday’s report focused on lived experience and frontline pressures. Today’s report turned to regulation, inspection and reform. Together, they offered a sobering snapshot of an agency under immense strain. But they also revealed something else. The conversation remains carefully bounded, avoiding the most uncomfortable questions now facing the State.

Yesterday’s report laid bare the human cost of a system that is reactive rather than preventative. Kai Brosnan, who spent his teenage years in residential care and is now a social care worker himself, described a childhood shaped by instability and emotional neglect. “So much is changing around you, and you feel such a loss of control in your own life,” he said, explaining how care becomes crisis driven rather than supportive.

His observation that “care should feel like care, not something you need to recover from” should haunt policymakers. It captures the gap between institutional intent and lived reality more clearly than any audit ever could.

That gap was echoed by Teresa, a grandmother who fostered her grandchildren. Her testimony was devastating in its ordinariness. Repeated requests for help were ignored. Counselling that was promised never materialised. “I ended up paying for it myself. I had to go private,” she said, describing how she cycled through multiple social workers and was forced to retell her story again and again.

These are not isolated anecdotes. They are patterns. They speak to a system that leans heavily on families while failing to support them in meaningful ways.

Yesterday’s report also included the voices of social workers themselves. Caroline Strong of the Irish Association of Social Workers pointed to crushing caseloads, retention problems and poor inter agency coordination. Her warning that the language shift from “allocated social worker” to “allocated worker” risks diluting professional accountability should ring alarm bells. When responsibility becomes vague, children pay the price.

Today’s report shifted the lens to oversight and reform. The Health Information and Quality Authority confirmed that most children receive a good service and that incremental improvements are being made. But the caveats were significant. Inspections repeatedly identify governance failures and chronic staffing shortages.

Nearly all inspections are unannounced, yet the same risks continue to surface. Eva Boyle of HIQA was frank about the limits of her organisation’s powers. Outside of three special care units, HIQA cannot enforce compliance through the courts. It can highlight risk, request plans and hope for improvement. Hope, however, is not a safeguard.

The discussion on the forthcoming Guardian ad Litem National Service exposed another fault line. Retired judge Dermot Sims warned that moving guardians under ministerial appointment risks weakening the independence that allows children’s voices to be heard in court.

His concern was not ideological but practical. When guardians are appointed and removed by the executive rather than the courts, independence may exist on paper while being fragile in practice. In a system already struggling with trust, that matters.

And yet, for all their strengths, yesterday’s report and today’s report shared a striking omission. They did not meaningfully engage with the most disturbing and topical issues now dominating public discourse.

There was no serious examination of the murders of children known to the agency. There was no reckoning with documented cases of children in State care being trafficked by predatory adult males for sexual exploitation. These are not peripheral issues. They go to the core of whether the State can credibly claim to act in the best interests of the child.

By focusing on structure, staffing and process while skirting around these catastrophic failures, the coverage risks reinforcing a comforting narrative that the system is broadly sound but overstretched. Nobody from Tusla was interviewed nor was there any reference to approaches to the agency that might have been made for an interview or a response.

The truth is harsher.

A child protection system must be judged not by incremental improvement or budget increases, but by its ability to prevent the gravest harms. Until public debate squarely confronts those realities, accountability will remain partial and children will remain at risk.

28/01/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1CD5pBXTzY/

Let’s Talk About “School Can’t” — The Part Nobody Sees

Every time I write about school can’t, parents message me in tears, not because they’ve failed, but because someone finally put words to their lived reality.

School can’t is not:
✘ defiance
✘ manipulation
✘ entitlement
✘ “picking and choosing”
✘ a parenting issue

School can’t is a nervous system response.
It is the body saying, “I have reached my limit.”

And once you see it through that lens, the entire story changes.

What school can’t actually looks like?
It’s the child who wants to go but physically can’t get out of bed.
It’s the one who gets dressed, then collapses in tears by the door.
It’s the teen who tries to walk through the gate but freezes.
It’s the child who holds it together all day, then melts down the moment they get home.
It’s headaches, nausea, shutdowns, irritability, panic, overwhelm.
It’s the child who can’t explain why, because they don’t know either.

It’s a body-level NO, not a behaviour-level no.

Why school can’t happens (especially for PDAers):
✔️ Constant demands from the moment they wake
✔️ Transitions, unpredictability, noise, expectations
✔️ Being evaluated all day long
✔️ Social pressure + masking
✔️ Loss of autonomy
✔️ Executive functioning overload
✔️ Sensory overwhelm
✔️ Feeling misunderstood or unsafe
✔️ Burnout that nobody knew was building

School can’t usually arrives after years of coping, pushing, masking, trying, and absorbing more than their nervous system could hold.

The hardest part for parents:
It looks invisible to the outside world.
You hear things like:
“Just make them go.”
“They need resilience.”
“You’re enabling this.”
“They’ll fall behind.”
“Everyone has to go to school.”

But your child isn’t fighting school.
They’re fighting their nervous system.

And you’re the one holding it all, the guilt, the pressure, the fear, the judgment, the unknown future.

What actually helps?

Reduce pressure, not increase it
Force makes school can’t worse, not better.

Create safety first
No child learns, copes, or connects in fight-or-flight.

Look for early warning signs
Irritability, avoidance, shutdowns, lateness, tummy aches, school refusal mornings, these are communication.

Explore alternative pathways
Part-time loads, online learning, interest-led education, TAFE, homeschooling, flexible timetables, all valid.

Support recovery from burnout
Rest is not giving up.
Rest is the bridge back to stability.

Use collaboration, not compliance
“What would make school feel safer?”
“What’s the hardest part of the day?”
“How can we work together?”

Know that this isn’t always permanent
Children who experience school can’t can thrive. just not under pressure.

And to the families living this:
You’re not failing.
You’re not imagining it.
You’re not creating the problem.
You’re witnessing your child hit a limit that most people never see
and you’re choosing compassion over force.

That makes you a safe parent, not an enabling one.

27/01/2026

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/StateOfCaring2026?fbclid=IwdGRjcAPl5F9jbGNrA-XkSGV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkDDM1MDY4NTUzMTcyOAABHpNC9y9nqhOE9sl6Xn9p1UrBm6TOP2_givrUEKohuqhjotKoqQhv8zecgt4O_aem_lyQawqW9-QpvvFCLatQv7A

Share Your Opinions & Experiences. Help us advocate for better recognition and support.

26/01/2026

Best of luck to you all.

18/01/2026

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17/01/2026

16/01/2026

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14/01/2026

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