Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The natural instinct of committee members is to empathise with social care workers and social workers. Our limited interaction with them through our constituency offices indicates that caseload is a significant factor for them. If there is a finite number of social workers and social care workers and the rate of attrition is high, one can reasonably extrapolate that the number of cases each worker must manage is increasing. I would contend that there are not enough hours in the day for them to deal with every case from a time management point of view. There must be some sympathy for the position in which they find themselves, notwithstanding the immediacy of the need of the child or family. Are social care workers and social workers now being put through the ringer? The statutory investigation was very challenging in terms of its conclusions and was instigated in the wider context of a tribunal. Are Tusla staff now subject to a higher level of bureaucracy that is challenging their ability to deliver for the people they serve and putting them under even more pressure?