Tusla confirms Kyran Durnin review will not be published

Tusla has confirmed that it will not be making public the review it is carrying out into the case of schoolboy Kyran Durnin, who is missing presumed dead.

The Child and Family Agency is currently concluding an internal review into its interactions with Kyran and his family.

The review is expected to be shared with Minister for Children Roderic O'Gorman in the coming days, even as soon as tomorrow.

In a statement this afternoon, a spokesperson for Tusla said: "In accordance with standard practice in sensitive situations, and in the context of the live investigation by An Garda Síochána and the highly sensitive nature of the personal information involved, the review cannot be published at this time."

Meanwhile, a separate report requested in relation to information held by Tusla’s Education Support Service (TESS) will also be shared with Education Minister Norma Foley this week.

Minister Foley yesterday said she will be pursuing a potential "tightening up of things" with her counterpart in Northern Ireland in the wake of the Kyran Durnin case.

It is now one week since a search at the former Durnin family home and an adjoining area of open land in Dundalk, Co Louth came to an end, the results of which were not made public.

Gardaí said they withheld making the results of the search public for operational purposes.

However, they believe the boy may have been killed up to two years ago, when he was aged six.

Tusla previously said that in August, it alerted gardaí to a significant concern about Kyran.

The agency also said that while Kyran was not in its care, it had engaged with him and his family. Last week, it opened an internal review into its interactions with Kyran and his family.

Minister O’Gorman has said that this review should be completed by the end of this week.

Speaking on RTÉ’s This Week programme last Sunday, Minister O’Gorman said he did not know if the Child and Family Agency received a referral due to Kyran’s prolonged absence from school, but he expected the Tusla review would contain this information.

Minister O’Gorman is set to receive a copy of the review as soon as tomorrow.

The review report will also be shared with the National Review Panel, whose responsibility is to independently review cases of serious incidents involving children in care or known to Tusla.

Data loss

Some of the data that Tusla held on its engagement with Kyran and his family is understood to have been lost in a security breach during the widespread cyber attack on the HSE’s IT systems in 2021.

Tusla insists that this data loss has had no impact on the internal review that it is currently carrying out and that is almost near completion.

A spokesperson for Tusla has said: "A system used by some staff in this regional area was not restored following the cyber attack, as it was based on old technology. However, this was not the system of record for case notes and isn’t relevant to the internal review underway."

However, it has not been clarified what impact, if any, this data loss has had on the ongoing garda murder investigation into the schoolboy’s disappearance.

Detectives continue to try and uncover any evidence which might provide them with information about Kyran’s whereabouts or what happened to him.

A spokesperson for the gardaí has said they will not be providing any additional updates on the investigation at this time.