Mr. Bernard Cantillon:

Nearly every social worker welcomes HIQA, which has been mentioned, because it serves to improve the standard of the service that is provided to children and families who come into contact with Tusla. When HIQA identifies a difficulty, it tends to come back. When it comes back, I suppose there is a fatigue of assessment and a fatigue of being under the prism of an investigation. I know that some areas within Tusla, such as the Dublin south-central area, have had several HIQA investigations. This puts an awful lot of pressure on social workers in such areas. They feel they are responsible not only for their day-to-day work, but also for providing their files to investigators from HIQA who want to inspect those files and go through them with the social workers in question. They feel they are constantly being brought in for interview to explain what is happening and why it is happening. Many of these things come back to the lack of staff. Individual social workers feel they are under the gaze of HIQA.