Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The number of social workers leaving the profession or retiring has eclipsed the number of new recruits in many individual years. This is a major issue, but it was not the case during 2020. I should single out an initiative taken by Tusla under its chief executive, Mr. Bernard Gloster, to convert agency staff to full-time staff. That has been extremely successful and has provided 140 full-time social workers. In 2020 we have seen a net gain of 100 social workers. That takes account of those who have retired or left the organisation and those on career breaks. That is a significant difference from other years. We must give credit to the innovation the HSE is showing in its approach to this area.

These Estimates also provide for a significant recruitment campaign which Tusla is undertaking in the United Kingdom. A significant number of Irish qualified social workers are there at the moment. We are hoping to encourage them to come home and return to Tusla. One issue facing the profession in the long term is the fact that not enough graduate social workers are emerging each year. Only in the region of 215 graduate from the universities each year. They are in great demand because Tusla is not the only agency that employs them. A social worker education group is investigating the possibility of increasing the number of degree programmes for social workers in the country.

Finally, Tusla is working on its strategic workforce planning model. That work started in 2019 and continues in 2020. One aspect involves looking at the balance between social workers and social care workers to make sure we are getting it right.

It is also to ensure that tasks are done at the appropriate level. Some more administrative tasks have also been taken on by Tusla to try to take some of the non-social work type work away from the social workers, to an extent.

On legislation, I am aware that a number of Bills were well in progress and did not get through the previous Dáil. I am having very quick legislation put through and I will have one on the books very quickly. Obviously, that is not the ideal way to proceed. I appreciate everyone working with me on it because of the particular context there. There are some very important pieces of legislation in the area of children's welfare and there are also some legacy issues we need to progress. I am extremely eager to get legislation progressed. The Deputy has my assurance on that.