Mr. Kevin McCarthy:

Yes. We have conducted surveys of providers of social work education to try to identify issues. At the moment, we are trying to establish a set of short-term actions that could have an impact on the social worker supply in the short term.

The Chairman is right. In the last few years, Tusla has effectively sought to recruit every social work graduate emerging from the Irish higher education system. We have also included social work on the list of professions for employment permit purposes to try to encourage the inward supply of social workers. Notwithstanding all of the efforts that have been made to increase supply, to increase Tusla's offering in terms of graduate recruitment and to bring in additional social workers, there is a real challenge for Tusla because it tends to find itself-----