Ms Kate Duggan:

I thank the Deputy for his question. As he rightly stated, in late 2019 Tusla became aware of an issue concerning the timeliness of referrals to An Garda Síochána. Such referrals were not being made within the desired timeframe. We have to deal with approximately 1,200 cases per year in the Kerry area. This audit indicated that of that number, 365 referrals were not made to An Garda Síochána in a timely way. As the Deputy noted, 122 of those were current cases and 243 were what we call "retrospective cases". It is unacceptable that the Garda notification was not made in a timely manner in 122 current cases. However, a social worker would be actioned to deal with any identified risks.

Immediate action was taken when Tusla identified that problem. The notifications have all been made. Tusla then examined the contributing factors. As the Deputy noted, one of them concerned staffing. There were also issues concerning practice and structure. As the Deputy rightly said, interpretation of the correct timing of notifications was not consistent. Views on when the notification should be made differed among social workers. That can be caused by inconsistencies in practice in a certain area or varying levels of experience among social workers. To immediately rectify that, a practice memo was developed in consultation with An Garda Síochána. That was shared with everybody. A staffing deficit was identified and additional staff have been assigned. Services have also been restructured.

To ensure consistency, Tusla did not just look at the incident in Kerry. The incident was understood as a symptom of a problem that could arise anywhere. Other areas were audited to detect problems with Garda notification. Tusla carried out an audit of 1,535 cases across 17 areas. The organisation determined that there was a timeliness issue in 13% of those cases. The practice memo and the associated guidance was shared throughout Tusla. Our own audit team, which identified the first problem, will carry out another audit in early 2021 to check that this is no longer a problem. We expect the changes to have been made by that point.

Returning to the Deputy's question on resources, the chief executive noted earlier that Tusla has a funded workforce of a certain size. That is not to say that it is able to meet the increased demand arising from the increased number of referrals or the complex types of presentation we are seeing among children.

As Mr. Gloster referenced, there are going to be approximately 100 to 120 front-line posts going into the system in 2021. My office is looking at targeting where that need is. That work involves, for example, looking at the number of social workers per thousand children within the population. It also looks at where there are issues with dealing with matters such as unallocated cases. That is not to say that if we feel there are practice concerns or issues with how things could be done more efficiently, we will not look at those. It is not about rewarding waiting lists but about recognising where there is a real need for additional resources.

In the challenging environment of recruiting additional social workers, we also have to look at the multidisciplinary approach to what a team looks like within a particular area. One of the Deputy's colleagues referenced the administrative burden. A report we have done demonstrates that we would be looking at a ratio of around one member of administrative staff to every four social workers to reduce that administrative burden. We have to look within those extra 100 to 120 extra staff to see where they will deliver the greatest impact and where they are of greatest need to improve resources for 2021.