Ms Caoilfhionn Gallagher:

I thank the Cathaoirleach for highlighting the event in relation to kinship care. It is such a critical issue. It is often the Cinderella of the care system. It is overlooked and the role those people perform is so critical. As I said, they save the State millions and it is so shortsighted if we do not provide support in that respect because then we will have more children entering the formal care system unnecessarily. It is critical as a matter of principle because it is the right thing to do but it is also pragmatic. That is hugely important.

On the family support point, I very much agree with the issue the Cathaoirleach raised. That old phrase "prevention is better than cure" is absolutely right in this context. It is particularly so when dealing with that perfect storm that Senator Ruane referred to earlier with the cost-of-living crisis, the housing crisis and so on. People are facing unprecedented pressures in many respects and with those pressures comes a situation where people are at the edge of care. If we provide better support earlier, it is not only the right thing to do for children and for their families but an imperative in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is to take appropriate steps, using the maximum available resources, to ensure children remain living with their families where possible. I feel that is a topic that is sometimes overlooked. You end up doing firefighting after something has gone wrong rather than diverting resources into the preventative aspect. That is a hugely important issue the Cathaoirleach has raised.

I would just flag one other matter relating to recruitment and retention of social workers, given the discussion that arose earlier in respect of that. I am very conscious that reference was made to a recent survey that was done internally. I would commend to the committee a very detailed review that was undertaken by Social Care Ireland, Dr. Martin Power and Ms Charlotte Burke and published in 2021. The reason I raise this is that it comes back to some of the earlier issues that were raised. That review included a survey from 2019, just before the pandemic, and an analysis that was conducted subsequently in 2021 about the social care and social worker retention and recruitment crisis. In that document the authors highlight a number of important matters which I feel would be remiss not to flag and get on the record before we finish this evening. The first is of course that you are dealing with an overwhelmingly female workforce. They highlight quite rightly in their analysis that some more general issues related to workforce difficulty also relate to social workers. They said:

Affordable childcare for example, remains a particular challenge in Ireland, especially where there are irregular work patterns and unsociable hours ... Given that both are features of social care work and that the social care workforce is overwhelmingly female, such influences cannot but impact recruitment and retention.

They also highlighted the fact that upwardly-spiralling rents, house prices and cost-of-living increases cause particular problems, particularly when dealing with urban areas.

They also had interesting results in their survey. At the top of the list, from social workers giving their own responses to what the problems were with recruitment and retention, were pay and conditions. Pay and conditions were by far the greatest challenge respondent social workers perceived in relation to recruitment and retention. That accounted for almost one third, or 30.9%, of all responses. Second on the list was respect and recognition at 16.3%. They are critical issues. The review authors also identified a particular problem with predatory recruitment practices whereby social workers are initially recruited and then offered a job at a lower level. That was a very particular problem they identified. That is a report that is well worth looking at.

It is worth saying that, rather like the foster care issue, which was not new issue, this is now being treated as if it is a crisis and we have to firefight it. This has been an issue that many stakeholders have been raising repeatedly since 2009. Indeed, the predecessor to this committee also raised it a number of years ago. We have the same pattern with social workers. It is not a new issue. Between 2015 and 2019, Tusla saw a 30% increase in referrals and only a 1% increase in the social care workforce and increased reliance on agency workers. Social Care Ireland, Dr. Kenneth Burns from UCC and many others, including the former Joint Committee on Children and Youth Affairs, have been looking at this issue for a long period of time. It is essential that we grasp the nettle now and deal with this issue before it becomes a greater problem. That is why I think the issue highlighted by Mr. Vivian Guerin in the letter from January is so important. Those issues are central and need to be addressed.