Ms Clare Murphy:

No matter where they live. We then assess the children at either medium or low. We look at all the factors, we make a safety plan, we put in as much safety as possible and say that, on balance, given we have insufficient resources, that cohort of children can wait a period of time. That period of time absolutely depends on staffing in that area at that time. When we say they wait, we have governance and oversight. They are continually audited. Any new information that comes in which raises the risk factor means the child gets allocated immediately.

Another thing I want to say is that, as the Child and Family Agency, we want every single child who comes to Tusla, whether for child protection and welfare, fostering or residential care, to have an allocated social worker. Our challenge is we just do not have the social workers. When we do our workforce planning, we are not going to have the social workers. We know this in 12 to 18 months and in 24 months. We are trying to establish what are the tasks that only a qualified social worker can do and that a child needs them to do. They are the tasks we will get a professionally qualified social worker to do. We are now having to look at what other roles, grades and professions we can bring in to enhance the child's life, because we cannot and we are not in a position to allocate the child to a social worker. We are doing a lot of work on workforce planning. We are doing a lot of work on different grades. We are in touch with CORU. We are in touch with the Department. We are making every possible effort to surround the child with help and support, but we cannot always make it a qualified registered social worker.