Mr. Fred McBride:

We are making major attempts to recruit social workers and we have tried to take back control of what we call social work panels. They used to be national panels run by the national recruitment service of the HSE. For the first two years, we were entirely dependent on that system for recruitment. I am absolutely clear it did not and does not meet our purposes or needs. It is not quick enough and is too bureaucratic and inflexible. Over the past two years, we have attempted to take back some degree of control at least over that process by setting up our own Tusla recruiting capacity. Recently, we have taken back the social work panels from the national recruitment service and have set up regional arrangements for recruitment.

We have also been in touch with third level institutions and we have a third level liaison group. Through universities and colleges, we are trying to promote Tusla as an employer of choice and ensure people get the support they need when they come to work. We are trying to work with universities to ensure new graduates are as ready as they can be for the practice, albeit that everybody will need some support in his or her first two years. I have also personally been to recruitment events outside Ireland trying to recruit social workers, particularly from the North and the UK. Those are some of the actions we have taken.

We have also been looking at a retention strategy and we have been recruiting in large numbers. The problem has been keeping hold of staff, to be frank. We are looking at other measures, such as creating a senior practitioner grade, to try to encourage people to stay in practice. Currently, career development often means moving into management and we want to give opportunities to people to stay in practice and be rewarded and recognised for their experience. The turnover of social workers in the Republic of Ireland is 8.8% and in the UK it is 15%. We have real problems but comparatively speaking, it is not quite as bad as other places. We really need to work further on that in order to support people in doing this work. We want people coming to Tusla who really want to do the work. We cannot have people coming in because they need a job and would rather be working in the mental health, disability or probation areas. I do not want that and we do not need cases where people stay for a short period and leave. We need people who are dedicated to this area of social work and who really want to work with us and be supported.

We are also looking at our skills mix and we will have a workforce plan ready in the autumn that will describe the sort of mix we think we require. It is not just all about social workers, as important as they are, particularly in the area of child sexual abuse. We need qualified social workers to do that work. Their work can be supported and supplemented by social care workers, family support workers and our very valuable administrative and clerical staff in order to free social workers to do what they need to. That work is in train.