Joan Freeman (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their presentations. They gave us such an enormous amount of information that I am completely and utterly confused, baffled and amazed at all that is going on for them. I will simplify it for my sake by asking a few questions. There seem to be two issues. One relates to the educational social workers. I do not know if the universities have a problem attracting new careers in social work. One issue is the educational element and the witnesses spoke about placements. The Chairman asked a few questions that I intended to ask but I will broaden one of them. Dr. Halton mentioned the issue of high quality placements. I would like to know what she means by high quality in that sense. Dr. McTaggart said that out of every three requests that are made only one placement is secured. Are the universities scraping the barrel at times because they are not getting any placements?

Who is responsible for this area? Is it the HSE? Should the witnesses be talking to people in the HSE in seeking improvement on placements and the provision of expenses for students when they have to travel.

I and the other members were part of the Joint Committee on the Future of Mental Healthcare. One of the biggest issues we noted was the recruitment and retention of staff, in particular psychiatric staff. When we investigated what the problem was with recruitment, we found there was a long and ridiculously complicated process people had to go through to get the job as a psychiatric nurse or doctor. I would like to know the process involved in this context. Who is responsible for it? Those applying to be psychiatric nurses and doctors had to take 42 steps before they could even get to the interview stage. I would like to know about the high quality placements, the step by step process involved in recruitment and what was the other issue I wished to ask about-----