Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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The new chairman of Tusla, Pat Rabbitte, was before us recently, and we provided details to him. I did not realise how difficult it is for students to get placements. A young lady came to me and said that she was having great difficulty in getting a placement, and I automatically said to her that she should look for a placement in Tusla. She explained to me how difficult it is to get a placement. We need a strong advocate to ensure that a service level agreement and the element of permanency comes back into the area. This would not happen in nursing or teaching. Students of those disciplines always get their placements. We know there is a shortage in this area for social workers. There needs to be a constant focus on this because the service is really crying out for staff. We will not ever address retention if we are not able to secure placements.