Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for that question. Apologies, I meant to say we will engage. We are just about to have the discussions with the HEA. We have been planning to do exactly as the Deputy identified.

I would make two points here, specifically, in regard to social workers. More places need to be created at third level for the significant numbers of young people who want to avail of those place. Until that happens, one action in the Tusla active recruitment programme is that it must look outside of the country, to Northern Ireland, the UK and beyond, in order to attract social workers here. This is probably more a medium-term ambition. If the Deputy has views in that regard or anything that she wants to provide to me and my Department, I would be more than happy to consider them. In coming into office, this is one of the first items on which I would have had discussions with the Department stating this is what we need to aim for. The other point is we need to create more places. I understand that is a big ask and it is good to know we are about to engage in those discussions.

The other aspect, in terms of higher education, that we have been speaking about that also influences the challenges in recruitment, particularly within Tusla so that we have who we need for unallocated cases and also working for the care and protection of children, is the issue around the qualifications for social care workers. We have been looking a lot at that, more from a third level education perspective, to ensure that we support and encourage that the programmes, and content of the curriculum of the many such courses, are geared and reformed in an ongoing way to the challenges in the work, particularly in the care and protection of children. Many in my Department are working on and committed to that.

As I have stated on a number of occasions in other contexts, it is important to emphasise that it is not only about social workers. I do not mean these comments by way of explicit criticism of the current programmes and degrees for social care workers. Those working in this field are aware of the challenges. We are merely identifying that it would be important in ongoing conversations to ensure that there is a match between what is required in terms of the ongoing challenges in caring for children and what is going on in the workplace, particularly in light of the Tusla requirements on social care workers.

Social care staff, administrative staff, etc. can reduce the burden on social workers. Many members will probably have heard the complaint or concern that social workers are sometimes caught up in doing more administrative work than they wish. Therefore, we need to increase the number of social workers.

The Government has provided the money to me in terms of meetings to ensure that pressure is maintained to tackle recruitment issues. Deputy Jan O'Sullivan has raised the retention of workers before. I know that Tusla is addressing the matter, particularly in its plans for 2017.