Mr. Gordon Jeyes:

To answer Deputy Ó Caoláin, we have covered some of the issues regarding out-of-hours services. As we put in place the final plans I will be happy to provide them. I have every confidence in the hard-working staff and leadership in north Dublin. We have been in existence for 18 months and the report stated that the progress in improving our partnership with the Garda has been impressive over the past 12 months. Some of the initial publicity whereby attention was drawn to half a paragraph of criticism and not the improvement was unfortunate. Our partnership with the Garda is good and needs to remain steady. It always needs to be monitored. Delays are unacceptable. The issue of physical abuse is particularly interesting with regard to how it fits into our multicultural policy in ensuring families understand the standards expected of them. We have been working with the immigrant family support unit and others to improve our understanding and cultural diversity training and we work with the agents of these communities locally.

In Dublin, although not necessarily in the rest of the country, turnover is quite high. The average age of those in the social work profession is lower than elsewhere. As well as working on recruitment, we must work on retention, and getting the agency fully staffed will assist with this. We do not always know what case will be complex when we start it. As was rightly said, we want to have supervision. The north Dublin report stated that supervision was good, governance was strong, management was experienced and oversight was present, as well as stating the areas for development. In these circumstances, I am confident that new social workers and those returning to the profession are getting support. We are a service under pressure and sometimes this support and nurturing can suffer.