Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

The transfer of the community welfare officers is central. They spend the Department's money and the Department pays the Department of Health and Children to pay them to pay the money. That is not an efficient, integrated system. The Department has no difficulty in getting staff from other Departments but there is a difficulty in the HSE, even though they have had extra places sanctioned. There are issues there, however, related to back-filling. However, although extra places have been sanctioned for the HSE, issues arise over backfilling or some other phenomenon. I am not quite sure about the intricacies of the process. It is not quite relevant here. Undoubtedly, were the officers to be part of our Department, we could ensure that we would be able to fill any vacancies if staffing difficulties arose. This is because we have powers of sanction.

I indicated at the beginning of this year that we need 300 additional staff. One hundred and fifty of those are currently in place and we expect to get the other 150. They have been placed in local offices and the central units.

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