Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)

I reject Deputy Boyd Barrett's interpretation and I will give my reasons. For a start, there were 37 extra social workers working in child and family services during 2011. An additional 60 social workers have been recruited. As Minister I have ensured that the monetary provision for child and family services went up by €21 million or 4% this year compared to the previous budget. The previous Government reduced funding in this area by €14 million. I succeeded in maintaining the funding in a difficult situation and secured an increase of €21 million or 4%. I reject what Deputy Boyd Barrett stated about there being fewer resources in this area.

Clearly, the situation regarding the recruitment of social workers and how they are deployed has been impacted by the difficult financial situation in which the HSE finds itself. I have stated again and again that the legacy I have inherited is completely unsatisfactory as is the way social work services have been run within the HSE. It is so unsatisfactory that I cannot compare work with like work throughout the country because the data has not been collected for previous years. The legacy is a complete failure to manage these services in the way they should have been managed and a failure to give the data we need to plan for them properly. However, this is being dealt with and this is why there is a strong programme of reform in this area, led by Gordon Jeyes, with a focus on priority cases coming to the duty teams. This is being managed by him and his team. We are gathering more data so that we can plan better. Just as important, we are reforming these services so that we will deliver them in a new place away from the HSE in a new child and family support agency.

This is a challenging environment. I agree with what Deputy Boyd Barrett says about the challenging environment and the numbers of families who find themselves under pressure. Issues of drug and alcohol addiction are seriously impacting on families and there is an increase in the number of children coming into care because of these problems.

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