Mr. Gerry Hone:

That is easy to do. On the HIQA inspection you referenced, it was at a particular point in time when that particular area had particular struggles with recruiting sufficient staff. We have reported cases that were unallocated historically, where we said they were unallocated to a social worker but, at the same time, staff were visiting children. They were social care workers whom either we employ ourselves or who were from the community and voluntary sector.

What we report now is the sum total of the work we undertake with families in terms of all the staff that are going in. If a case is allocated to another professional, that gets recorded on our system, so we can report accurately where a social care worker is employed, and a social worker is not. Every social care worker who is engaged with a family from our child protection and welfare teams are under the supervision of a team leader who is social work qualified and CORU registered.