Ms Kate Duggan:

No. First, it is important to say that Tusla is almost at its funded workforce, generally. It has seen its retention figures rise in the past year. Certainly, this recruitment and retention of staff is a good news story for us. We have a challenge around the supply of social work staff in the context of qualifications and the number of people who are qualifying at third level. However, we have seen great progress in this regard with the support of the Department of further and higher education. Last week, we launched a new masters programme in social work with TUS to provide the first training of its kind in the mid-west. Later this week, we are launching, in partnership with UCC, both a masters programme through apprenticeship in UCC and a tertiary apprenticeship programme, again with the support of the Department of higher education. That is from the supply side.

We have now put in a therapeutic team to support children who are coming into the care of Tusla who have been abused to inform their care plan. We have six of those teams. Certainly, in small pockets, we have been challenged to recruit. As Ms Murphy said, posts remain vacant in the areas of speech and language and occupational therapy.