Mr. Jim Gibson:

This initiative came from the chief operations office because we could see that there were troubled children across the system who needed a community-based intervention. They were not getting help from others and were going around to everyone. We rolled out the scheme on seven sites and hope to expand to 17 next year. We have achieved efficiencies within our budget to help us with the project. If we can prevent children from leaving their families and communities, we will not have to spend a significant amount of money per week on private residential placements.

A couple of questions were asked about administration work. The Deputy is right in saying social workers should not waste time doing filing, etc. The national child care information system is pretty good and does a lot for social workers. More importantly, Mr. McBride and I visited an area manager by the name of Caroline in north Dublin who told us that she spent the first three and half months of her current job working on appeals. It is a fact that we have totally relied on the HSE for a significant period to perform all of these corporate functions, but we need to be self-sufficient. We have stated this in documents and communications we have sent to the Department which supports our desire to be self-sufficient. In order to succeed, we are building a regional business and administrative hub based around the service directors in which there will be expertise in managing freedom of information requests, replies to parliamentary questions and getting answers to Members in a more efficient way.

Health and safety is another matter. Tusla is a large organisation. As our CEO has stated, we need to work within many frameworks and show that ours is a safe and consistent agency.

I want area managers to meet their principal social workers to analyse unallocated cases, referrals, the cases of children in care and support our staff in that work. We have created administrative posts in the past two years at social work team level. They need such support.

Let us consider the issue of foster care. HIQA's inspection report identified that we fell down when it came to Garda vetting. If we did not have everyone vetted in the three year cycle, ours was deemed not to be a safe and effective service. Having a good administrative support process - a Garda vetting unit within Tusla - generated a significant improvement in that regard. That is a good example of how administrative issues were dealt with by good and efficient measures.

Family resource centres have been mentioned. We have spoken about the sad fact that children must tell their stories many times. We are really good in Ireland in making assessments. As an agency, we say a child only needs one assessment. He or she then needs to receive therapeutic support. As many as 11 more family resource centres are coming on stream. I am totally responsible for the 6,130 children in the care of the State. I am not saying they all need a therapeutic intervention, but a good number of them as a result of experiencing neglect and abuse. We are building therapeutic hubs using our partnerships with the community and voluntary sector. We have a pilot scheme operating in counties Waterford and Wexford which is working well and children are receiving support. We want to support children in care. In north Dublin there is a creative alternative community programme that supports children in foster care who present with challenging behaviours.

Foster carers need the correct supports.