Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am Deputy Sean Fleming from Laois. I am not a member of the committee but Mr. Jeyes will understand my concern. It is sad that this situation has arisen and it is good that it has been highlighted.

Last week, in his statement, Mr. Jeyes mentioned 700 unidentified files. Now he says there are 1,200 on which the status is unclear. The basic question I want answered is, what are Mr. Jeyes's staff numbers in the Laois-Offaly area and the average case load, how many of the full complement of staff there are on leave for a variety of reasons, including administrative leave, perhaps arising from this issue, and how many vacancies for staff are there?

I noted from Mr. Jeyes' opening statement that the procedure is what he terms "prioritisation from the duty team to a social work team" but that a principal social worker identified this as a problem. What happened the duty team that they did not identify the problem and that it took the social worker, who was probably picking it up from some other areas, to identify it?

This is the saddest part of this. I am a Deputy in Laois for quite a few years and I had substantially given up on the service. I did not think this service exists because various gardaí have said to me over the years when they made referrals to the child service, both before and since Tusla was set up, that they never heard anything back. They had no faith in hearing back. School principals have said the same to me. When cases came to their concern, they sent them in to the building in Portlaoise and heard nothing back. Public health nurses have also said the same to me. The gardaí, school principals and public health nurses have said this to me over a period of time. These staff, the most senior State officials in other public bodies, had not faith in Tusla's system. As a result, I did not even go chase those queries. I was asked why by some constituents. We all had given up on the system it was so bad.

Mr. Jeyes mentioned in his opening address that in Laois-Offaly he was "piloting" something. Is this merely the start of a process for the 17 other areas, because that word was used here earlier?