James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Again, I thank the Deputy for her contribution because, obviously, the earlier one intervenes the better and if there is a mechanism for obtaining information early before people actually arrive at the court, clearly that would be preferable. It is important to state, however, that this reporting project is in its early stages. This is only the second interim report and it is not possible to reach firm conclusions based on the information available at this stage. The variations in the numbers of child care applications and outcomes, including by region, ethnicity and family status, that have been identified by the project to date require further research to determine the reasons for them and establish how more targeted interventions could, where possible, ensure the level of intervention was at the most appropriate.

I hear the Deputy's issue about people who are trained professionally moving into management positions and leaving gaps at the front. Equally, however, I am greatly concerned that social workers do the work for which they have been trained and not do work that others at a lower professional level could do. I refer, for example, to being caught up in book work and clerical work. There is an issue concerning information technology in this area, as many social workers are still reduced to using pen and paper and do not have access to modern information technology that would make their job a lot more efficient, feed information back to the Department much more quickly and allow it to analyse the information more thoroughly.

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