CSO Central Statistics Office.
DPEIPSRD Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation.
GDPR General Data Protection Regulation.
GSBPM Generic Statistical Business Process Model.
MOU Memorandum of Understanding.
TOR Terms of Reference.
TCM Tusla Case Management System.
Act The Statistics Act, 1993.
2018 Act The Data Protection Act, 2018.
Care Experiences The Care Experiences Programme.
Department The Department of Children, Disability and Equality.
Primary data Information collected directly from individuals by the CSO.
Secondary data Information about individuals that the CSO collects from public authorities.
Steering Group The Longitudinal Study Steering Group.
The Study The National Longitudinal Study of Young People Transitioning from Care, Wave 1, Quantitative Data Survey.
Tusla The Child and Family Agency.
The Department of Children, Disability and Equality (the ‘Department’) is a government department, established in 2011, with responsibility for policy in relation to children, disability, and equality.
The Central Statistics Office (the ‘CSO’) was established in 1949 and became a statutory body in 1994, under the Statistics Act, 1993 (the ‘Act’).
The Child and Family Agency (‘Tusla’) was established in January 2014 by the Child and Family Agency Act, 2013.
The roles of the parties are summarised below:
The Department
As set out in its Statement of Strategy (2025-2028), the Department’s mission is to fund and deliver services supported by policy and legislation that realise people’s rights, promote equality, celebrate diversity and maximise opportunity to participate in society, particularly by children, disabled people and those experiencing inequalities.
The CSO
The functions of the CSO are set out in the 1993 Statistics Act. In particular, Section 10 states that the functions of the CSO are the collection, compilation, extraction and dissemination for statistical purposes of information relating to economic, social and general activities and conditions in the State.
The CSO has the authority to co-ordinate official statistics compiled by public authorities to ensure, in particular, adherence to statistical standards and the use of appropriate classifications. It also has the authority to assess the statistical potential of the records maintained by public authorities and to ensure that the potential is realised.
Furthermore, the CSO has legal obligations regarding the development, production, and dissemination of European statistics under Regulation 223/2009.
Tusla
Tusla supports and promotes the development, welfare and protection of children, and supports and encourages the effective functioning of families.
It also provides information and advice to the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality on matters relating to the Agency’s areas of responsibility.
Tusla undertakes or commissions research into matters related to its functions.
Tusla has a number of statutory obligations under various Acts including but not limited to the Children First Act, 2015, the Child and Family Agency Act, 2013, the Education (Welfare) Act, 2000, and the Child Care Act, 1991 (as amended).
Tusla has a statutory duty to protect children and young people who are not receiving adequate care and protection.
Launched in 2022, Care Experiences: Journeys Through the Irish Care System (‘Care Experiences’) is a research and data programme, which is being implemented by the Department in close collaboration with Tusla. The Programme uses a combination of primary research and secondary data analysis to examine and better understand the lives of children in care and aftercare and those who were in care as children.
A key part of the Care Experiences Programme is a national longitudinal study with young people as they transition out of the care system (the ‘Study’). This directly responds to Action 65 of the Ryan Report Implementation Plan (2009) which states: ‘the HSE will, with their consent, conduct a longitudinal study to follow young people who leave care for 10 years, to map their transition to adulthood’.
The aim of the longitudinal study is to generate evidence and a better understanding of the lives and experiences of young people during their transition from care to adulthood in order to improve the development of effective and responsive policies and services.
The Care Experiences Programme Board agreed that the proposed approach to the longitudinal study should comprise both quantitative and qualitative data collection, combined with secondary data linking / data matching.
This Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) relates to the planning, delivery and resourcing of Wave 1 of the Longitudinal Study only. Subsequent and related longitudinal qualitative wave(s) of data collection with young people transitioning from care are also planned under the longitudinal study and not in scope in this MOU. Wave 1 will involve the collection of data from participants by the CSO.
A Longitudinal Study Steering Group (the ‘Steering Group’) comprising officials from the Department, CSO and Tusla will be convened. The Steering Group will oversee the establishment and delivery of the Study and provide strategic direction.
The Steering Group shall operate in an advisory capacity in respect of statistical design, methodology and outputs.
As per the Statistics Act 1993, and in order to prioritise the collection of unbiased, quality data, the CSO retains full independence and final decision-making authority in relation to all statistical matters.
Terms of Reference for the Steering Group will be developed and agreed between the Department, CSO and Tusla. The terms will cover, amongst other things, membership, frequency of meetings, and scope. Changes to the terms of reference will be jointly agreed by all parties.
The Steering Group will be chaired by the Department and will report regularly into the Care Experiences Programme Board, which provides strategic oversight of Care Experiences. Substantive proposals, for example those that relate to operational or funding matters for the Study, may also need to be discussed within the decision-making structures of each of the three parties. The CSO will consult with Tusla and the Department, with final decision on any recommendations made by the Steering Group regarding the survey resting with CSO.
This the MOU relates to the planning and delivery of the Study. The purpose of this MOU is to clarify roles and responsibilities and areas of collaboration and cooperation between the Department, the CSO, and Tusla regarding the Study.
The survey will involve the CSO’s primary data collection from children in care and potentially other stakeholders subject to the requirements from the Research Needs Report.
The CSO’s statistical data processing will require secondary data extracted from the Tusla Case Management (‘TCM’) system, which is being collected by the CSO under Section 30 of the Statistics Act, and is covered in a separate MoU between TUSLA and CSO.
This agreement is a MOU and is not intended to create binding or legal obligations on either Party. The MOU is entered into on the understanding that it is subordinate to the relevant legislation governing each Party.
This MOU also sets out a shared understanding of the parties in relation to data protection issues that may arise and roles relating to the compilation, transfer, and use of this data. The processing of personal data of data subjects is governed by the Act, the Data Protection Act, 2018, (the ‘2018 Act’), and the General Data Protection Regulation (‘GDPR’).
All parties to this MOU have a shared role in achieving the overall objectives of the Study and ensuring compliance with relevant legislation, policies and procedures. Operational roles and responsibilities are detailed below.
The Department is the Study’s sponsor and will undertake key aspects of the Study including the identification of research needs, stakeholder engagement, development of a research programme and knowledge transfer activities.
The Department will:
The Department will engage with policy and scientific stakeholders; consult with the Study’s population of interest; identify research needs, data priorities and policy objectives; engage with the CSO on instrumentation development and design as required; enhance awareness of the Study; build capacity in data use; promote the use of study data for research and policy development; and generate research analyses of the data in the Study. The Department will engage with the CSO and Tusla throughout these processes.
The CSO is responsible for all elements of the survey. Primary data will be collected through a quantitative data survey and the CSO will carry out matching with secondary data it obtains from public authorities, including Tusla.
The CSO will:
The CSO will be solely responsible for publishing the survey results in line with the Act. This will take the form of releases and publications that contain appropriate accessible content, both descriptive and inferential statistics.
Consistent with GDPR and 2018 Act, the CSO will: hold personal data required for the operation of the survey; and control access to personal data compiled or collected as part of the survey operation. The CSO will act as the sole controller of survey data.
The CSO will maintain appropriate internal governance for the survey, this includes corporate structures such as the CSO Data Office, Confidentiality & Data Security Board, Quality and Methodology services, a Data Ethics Advisory Group and survey management structures in line with the GSBPM. It also includes policies on data management in line with GDPR and child protection in line with the Children First Act, 2015.
Tusla have a statutory duty and responsibility for all young people in care and function in loco parentis for children in care under Section 18 of the Child Care Act. As such, Tusla have the like control over the child as it if were his/her parent.
Tusla will:
o Offer support and assistance to the Department in the content of the Study, informed by the expertise of their Research Ethics Committee;
o Prepare, alongside the Care Experiences Programme Team, Tusla staff and practitioners for the commencement of the Study;
o Give an overarching (‘corporate’) agreement for children who are subject to a Care Order under Section 18 of the Child Care Act to participate in the survey,
o Prepare and transfer a bespoke study dataset to CSO and support the CSO to keep the dataset up to date during the data collection phase, if required and;
o Contribute to the drafting of CSO respondent-facing communication and to interviewer training to ensure language and learning is ‘care aware’.
o Provide support to children in care participating in the Study, if requested by the respondent following the survey.
All parties will:
The CSO is the sole controller of the data collected in the survey. In the event of a breach relating to survey data the CSO will refer to its own data breach procedures and may report the breach to the Data Protection Commission as appropriate. The CSO will inform the Steering Group. Tusla and / or the Department will not be held responsible for any loss, damage or injury caused as a result of such a breach.
In the event of such a breach the CSO will inform the Steering Group, in advance, of any decision to issue a public statement.
Processing of the survey data shall be done in accordance with Act, 2018 Act, GDPR, EU law and in accordance with the CSO’s Code of Practice and applicable policies.
The collection, transfer, and processing of Study (primary and secondary) data is covered by, inter alia, the following provisions:
Primary data and secondary data will be retained, securely stored and processed by the CSO in accordance with CSO policies.
The CSO will retain survey data for an appropriate, regularly reviewed, period, to ensure that statistics can be replicated over time, to facilitate longitudinal studies and time series analysis and to ensure historic statistics can be generated for new data needs as they arise.
The CSO is continuously evaluating the statistical requirements to balance the interests of data subjects with the requirements for official statistics and retention periods. As part of this evaluation, recommendations may be made during periodic reviews (annually) in relation to the retention of data.
Funding for Care Experiences in its entirety for the years 2026-2028 has been secured by the Department under the Mother & Baby Institutions Children Fund. However, the annual allocation of funding still necessitates application and sanction to the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform, and Digitalisation (DPEIPSRD) estimates process. The Department will engage directly with DPEIPSRD to negotiate the allocations required for the Study. The parties will cooperate in this exercise, having regard to the close intersection between their roles in the overall Study process.
The Department will transfer funding for the study components to the CSO and Tusla as required. The scope of funding required will be agreed by all parties.
In the event that funding ceases to be made available the study will be suspended. Parties shall plan to mitigate disruption. This includes data preservation and respondent communication.
The CSO will publish this MOU on its website.
This MOU will remain in force until a new one is entered into or either the Department, the CSO or Tusla revoke it. Depending on events, this MOU may be amended, subject to the mutual agreement of all parties.
This MOU will be reviewed annually by all parties. Any changes to the MOU shall only be made with the mutual agreement of all parties.
Signed:
Kevin McCarthy
Secretary General
Department of Children, Disability and Equality
Block 1
Miesian Plaza
50-58 Lower Baggot Street
Dublin 2
D02 XW14
Date: 28 July 2026
Jennifer Banim
Director General
Central Statistics Office
Skehard Road
Cork
T12 X00E
Date: 24 July 2026
Kate Duggan
Chief Executive Officer
Tusla – Child and Family Agency
The Brunel Building
Heuston South Quarter
St. John’s Road West
Dublin 8
D08 X01F
Date: 5 August 2026