Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Minister for her response. This is the second time I have had to ask about the number of social workers hired this year as a result of the recommendations of the Ryan report as the No. 1 Priority Question. On the last occasion I asked the Minister for specifics on the number of social workers we had on 1 January and how many we have now. The Ryan report commits to employing 200 additional social workers in 2010 with the objective of ensuring that each child in the State's care would have a social worker. A significant number - in the high single digits - of children in the State's care do not have a social worker. That is the specific objective of those additional social workers under the Ryan report implementation plan.

At her last Question Time, the Minister told the Dáil that as of the end of last year the 200 who were supposed to have been recruited last year had been recruited and any vacancies that had arisen had been backfilled last year. In order for us to understand how many social workers are in the system, we need to know the number on 1 January. How many social workers did we have at the start of this year and what is the figure today? On the last day the Minister gave a commitment to the Dáil on behalf of the Government that 60 new social workers would be hired this year. As of the start of November, none of those 60 has been hired. According to a HSE statement reported in The Irish Times a week and a half ago, there has been a recruitment pause-----

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