Ms Kate Duggan:

Our funded workforce is 5,100 and as of July we are at 4,928. We have certainly made progress on this. In terms of green shoots, so far this year 138 of our social worker graduates have been appointed to a Tusla position, as have 34 social care graduates. This is a direct result of us offering any graduate a permanent contract. In terms of international recruitment, we have 70 international social workers going through the progress of CORU registration to be able to work in Ireland. We hope to have 35 more coming through that process in November. This is thanks to the work that has been done on the critical skills list. It is great to hear that Waterford is interested in coming on board with regard to postgraduates. We are seeing a quicker win in the postgraduate supply of social workers. We are funding a pilot programme in Robert Gordon University. The technological universities in Limerick, Waterford and Sligo have additional places this year. Progress is being made.

To answer the queries on foster care, we continually advocate for the need for more foster carers. We certainly recognise, and it is our preference, that most children coming into care at least get the opportunity to be placed in a foster placement first. In very positive news, we have moved from 89% of children in foster care to our most recent figure being 90.6%. Almost 91% of children in care are in foster care. We are delighted with this. As the rate of referrals increases, and given the age profile of foster carers, we need an increased supply. To promote this, all of the recommendations in our foster care strategic plan are being implemented. What foster carers told us at the time was that they want additional supports, including financial supports. The Minister has referred to the additional allowance and the hope this will happen in the budget. They also looked for additional therapeutic supports for children in their care and consistency in the types of supports offered throughout the country. We have appointed a national foster care lead in the agency for the first time. For the first time we are recruiting and appointing six peer support foster care workers and these interviews are taking place. These are people with fostering experience who will mentor other foster carers.

What is also very important is that, thanks to funding from Government last year, for the first time we have been able to establish therapeutic teams throughout the regions. One of these is in the south east. These are therapeutic teams for children who come into care. Our ambition is that we will eventually build this capacity. We recognise that some children have therapeutic needs as a direct result of trauma versus other children who have an underlying mental health issue or disability. They need a trauma-informed approach to therapy. Six of these teams have been appointed. Unfortunately, in the south east we were not able to recruit a speech and language therapist or an occupational therapist but we have gone back out with a recruitment campaign. We want every child coming into care to get a multidisciplinary assessment to inform their care plan. We believe this will provide better support and a better experience for foster carers.

With regard to staffing details in CHO 5 in particular, we can give these to Deputy Murnane O'Connor separately. We do not want to hear what Deputy Murnane O'Connor has said about information sharing. We very much want to be seen as an agency that is open and engaging. It is done through the regional chief officer. We would want to know about any concerns with regard to supporting families.