Ms Caroline Walker-Strong:

A lot of Government Departments are working hard with respect to health and social care professionals by increasing education pathways and the attractiveness of the roles. CORU is trying to streamline its services so that international qualifications are recognised to the same quality that we have in Ireland. There is work being done in the background.

One of the things the Deputy mentioned was that recruitment is one thing and retention is another. It is about making those working conditions conducive to making people want to stay, so it is ensuring there are salary levels and career progression. People need to know that if they do a couple of years in the role, they can progress upwards and that there is a pathway and appropriate CPD available to them.

We have spoken a lot today about interagency work. With regard to a lot of those primary care posts that the Deputy is talking about that kind of sit in a lonely place, if we work on that interagency work and work in collaboration, that will not happen as much. The primary care social worker would interact much more with the local school, for example. They would not be on their own but rather part of a multidisciplinary team in the community.

Deputy Ó Murchú mentioned earlier about interagency collaboration working as a method of safeguarding, not just for children but for adults. If there are proper protocols and mechanisms available to professionals working in the community in those isolated posts, as Deputy Daly called them, they are free to communicate better, with consent where necessary. In the case of children, it allows for the free flowing of information to ensure we are making milestones, spotting things coming down the road, and doing that planning piece. Often, professionals in the community can see something coming. They can see it for miles away, but there is no mechanism to react to it because they do not feed directly into the next service the child will need, such as the Department of education. Work must be done on that interagency collaboration piece.