Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the speakers for their contributions thus far. I hear figures and that we are down 15% in the number of cases awaiting allocation. Some 28% of children are awaiting allocation of a social worker and we have an improved figure on that. There is a 15% improvement in unallocated cases.

That is 15% of the 28%, which is an improvement of 4.2%. That means 23% of children still do not have a social worker. That is almost one in four in State care or where the State has intervened who do not have a social worker. In committee rooms like this we can talk about statistics and we can talk about high-level numbers, but that is actually a child who does not have that support. I need to know what that means for that child. What support do they not have? What opportunities do they not have? They already come from a traumatised situation requiring the intervention of the State. What is the State not providing them with now? What does an average week or day look like as a consequence of that unallocation, so to speak? I would like an answer to that, and I also have a follow up question.