The health watchdog has highlighted issues in the care given to children in foster care in the MidWest.
There are nearly 600 foster care children in this region, but HIQA says there are a number of issues with how they are being cared for.
HIQA's annual report into children's services has expressed concern about inconsistencies in the safety and quality of children’s services nationally.
In the Mid-West, the report finds there are 584 children in foster care, but 79 of these have not been allocated a social worker.
There also seems to be issues in finding carers.
The document highlights "poor matching of children to carers" and cites this as a reason that 18% of those children, around 105 of them, have changed carer in the past year.
At the time that the report was being drawn up, HIQA notes that this was being addressed and it has vowed to monitor progress in this regard.
Elsewhere, HIQA has also found some evidence of improving services and good practice in children’s social care.
It says it will commence a national review of governance of TUSLA, the Child and Family Agency, this year.
