State authorities such as the HSE have produced only a “limited response” to the hundreds of recommendations  resulting from the 29 inquiries into the State’s handling of child abuse cases over the past two decades, a new study says.

The research, commissioned by the Government and carried out by academics from Trinity College, found that the inquiries yielded some 550 separate recommendations, the Irish Times reports.

The research is due to be published shortly by the Department of Children.

Among the most high profile of inquiries was the Independent Child Death Report, which examined the deaths of 196 children who had been in contact with child protection services over a 10-year period.

Referring to the research at a conference in Dublin yesterday, the HSE’s head of child and family services Gordon Jeyes said there had been “no shortage of advice” in the form of investigations over the years.

“The surfeit of recommendations in all of the reports was high in condemnation and low in structural or systemic analysis,” he told the International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect.

In addition, the political and economic background to child protection and welfare services over recent years had been unsettling, he said.

While social work posts had been exempt from a moratorium on public sector recruitment, there were often periods when there was not a sufficient budget to fill the posts available.

Despite these reductions in public spending, he said, the State had embarked on a major process of reform in the area with the creation of the new Child and Family Agency.

This agency, due to be established next year, will take over responsibility for child and family services from the HSE.