Ms Rosarii Mannion:

I thank the committee. It has been a really positive experience to engage with it today. I again refer to the outstanding staff we have in Tusla who do an extraordinary job, day in, day out, in the most difficult of circumstances. I really appreciate the positive acknowledgement.

In the context of the apprenticeship scheme, we are very focused on growing our own and developing a long-term pipeline of staff in order that we will not be in a situation where we are reliant on overseas staffing. Such staffing has a role, obviously, but we want to grow our own. The apprenticeship is a very progressive model in terms of social work and, hopefully, in the future, we will bring forward social care. On social care, we are bringing forward a work-based learning programme which will do very similar from September.

Tusla has led in terms of social work. Across the State prior to this, we were producing about 250 social workers. That was totally inadequate. On any day of the week, we would need 1,000 social workers being produced in this country. With the support of the executive, our board and colleagues in the Department, we have been able to bring forward this apprenticeship programme in partnership with UCC. Initially, we put forward 35 apprentices. This year, we have doubled that. We now have over 105 apprentices going through the churn, if you like. We will double our production of social workers in the next year. It has been fantastic in that we have new pathways, new grades applying and people with life experience. We have a much broader cohort coming through. The programme is in no way a yellow-pack initiative. The standards are the same. It is CORU registered and CORU regulated. The quality is the same and the academics are the same. The real positive is that the apprentices are with us and are staff from day one. They are Tusla employees. They are part of the team and they are contributing. They are going to college, bringing back that knowledge and applying it day to day. It has been an overwhelmingly positive experience. This is something we want to grow, share, develop and embed. It really is the way of the future.

We have done an all-staff survey. It was the second all-staff survey across the agency and there was a 63% response rate in respect of it. Two of the most positive indicators from the survey were the benefit of the apprenticeship programme for our teams and the programme's use in terms of supporting and driving a learning and developing culture.