Mr. Bernard Cantillon:

There is a shortage of fostering social workers. I prefer the term fostering social workers because there has been some thought put into the idea that the link worker for foster carers would not need to be a social worker. The professional committee in Fórsa for social workers does not agree with that. We think it is important that people have a social worker. All areas of Tusla have a shortage of social workers. It is an ongoing difficulty. We end up with a situation where Tusla has become very reliant on private agencies and private fostering agencies in some areas to meet its need for foster placements. This is almost a result of the fact that it does not have enough social workers to conduct the assessments and to do the recruitment to bring foster carers in, but because there is a shortage of social workers and a high turnover of social workers in departments, it makes the private agencies more attractive to those who want to become a foster carer because they know they will always have an allocated social worker who will have a smaller caseload. I have heard that the private agencies' social workers have six or seven cases per social worker, whereas social workers who are working in fostering in Tusla are carrying a far higher caseload.