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	Groups providing family support, rape crisis, domestic violence, and marriage counselling services all face further funding cuts, Tusla, the Child and Family Agency, has warned.</p>
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	Tusla chief executive Gordon Jeyes said that the agency was in a &ldquo;constant struggle&rdquo; to work within budget and more than 5,000 children, some &ldquo;at significant risk&rdquo;, were awaiting allocation of a social worker.</p>
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	&ldquo;We are managing that risk, teams are monitoring it, they&rsquo;re looking at it, they&rsquo;re seeing if it changes, but there&rsquo;s nevertheless a significant risk because we&rsquo;re not intervening as early as we could,&rdquo; he said.</p>
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	&ldquo;We are trapped in a cycle of crisis interventions,&rdquo; he said, adding the situation served nobody.</p>
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	&ldquo;Later interventions are not only less effective, they&rsquo;re more expensive.&rdquo;</p>
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	Mr Jeyes was speaking on RT&Eacute; radio after the leaking of a briefing document prepared for a Cabinet subcommittee. The document warns of children being left at risk of serious harm, and seeks a 20% increase in Tusla&rsquo;s budget over the next three years, amounting to an extra &euro;132m.</p>
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	Mr Jeyes said that, without additional funding, there would be further cuts to the specialist groups that work on Tusla&rsquo;s behalf in a range of family support fields.</p>
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	<a href="http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/warning-of-funds-crisis-in-child-protection-357474.html">http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/warning-of-funds-crisis-in-child-protection-357474.html</a></p>
