The shortage of social workers for foster care services locally was raised in the Dáil last night.
Deputy John Paul Phelan got the opportunity to question the Children’s Minister on the matter after a report by HIQA last week highlighted the issue.
Addressing the Minister, the local Fine Gael TD acknowledged that improvements had been made by Tusla last year but he said the number of children still without an allocated social worker remained too high:
“Figures for 2020 were better, in that they were down to 30 children in Carlow/Kilkenny/ South Tipperary without allocated social workers specifically for their long-term care. But that still hides the fact that we are talking about 30 young lives again, lives that need to be protected”
He went on to say that “In the circumstances that children find themselves in foster care, most of the time its the most vulnerable category of children that you could possibly deal with and 30 is still an unacceptably high figure”
Minister Roderic O’Gorman responded to Deputy Phelan saying Tusla had worked intensively to address the issues within the area:
“It’s important to note that HIQA has accepted the action plan that Tusla has provided in response to these recent actions”
He also pointed out that the cyber attack had impacted on the agency in terms of performance reporting so he promised to write to Deputy Phelan with the most up-to-date account in terms of meeting the action plan.
