James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies for their comments and questions and I will answer them as best I can. Deputy Troy asked who will take responsibility for the material that was published and for the children's referendum. In this regard, I emphasise the court found that the Government acted in a bona fide manner at all times. Moreover, the Department and the Minister of the day entered into the information campaign in good faith. The Government has accepted responsibility for what happened and there are lessons there to be learned for all subsequent referendum campaigns. In addition, the Government made a commitment to work within the parameters of the McCrystal judgment and has done so since. As for delays, that is a matter within the courts and as there is a separation of powers, the Government cannot very well interfere in that. This relates to the delay in the legislation on foster care.

Many people have raised the adoption information and tracing issue. The Department has been working on this highly complex area and I do not wish to repeat everything I have put into the written responses to the questions because I do not believe members would appreciate it. However, I will state that a huge amount of effort, energy and work has gone into this complex area. There is a balancing of rights, as some already have pointed out. I want it to be as progressive as possible and more recently, my Department has put to the Attorney General a new policy position devised by one of the people in the Department. I believe a way forward in this regard may have been found that now will allow me to expedite the Bill. However, I cannot over-emphasise the difficulty that was involved here in respect of trying to achieve an outcome that would accommodate both the retrospective and the prospective situations alluded to.

There also is an adoption (amendment) Bill pertaining to foster care, eligibility for adoption and step-parental adoption. I acknowledge this matter is of particular interest to some members present and it also is being worked on. Clearly, it was also influenced by the children's referendum in some respects and is being worked on and I hope to have something on that by October. In a small Department such as ours, with limited resources available in terms of personnel and expertise, the emphasis has focused on information and tracing.

The Deputy raised other issues like how many social workers are needed. We have the Measuring the Pressure analysis and ongoing work is being done there in respect of quantifying the number of staff we will need. We wish to consider how we use social workers, what supports can be given to them and what work can be done by other people to avoid social workers doing work that is more appropriate to less qualified people or certainly to people with different qualifications.

This relates to something else Deputy Regina Doherty raised recently, namely, the question of turnover of staff. We have, by international standards, a good rate of turnover of social worker staff. One cannot compare the turnover in social worker staff with nurses, doctors or others. It is a very different type of work and is very tough work, which is not to denigrate the toughness of the other professions but when one compares them with international rates, we compare very well, particularly when we draw comparisons with the United Kingdom, America or even Australia.

That work goes on and we want to have a business case that we can put from Tusla to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform when the Estimates process gets under way in order that we can address the issues comprehensively.

The Deputy said that I had said that we have plenty of social workers. I do not have any recollection of saying that.