Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for her response. This is not the first time a response from the Government has compared our system favourably with that in place in Britain or, specifically, England, but I do not think we should compare Ireland with England. The English social care system is in crisis and almost anything could be compared favourably with it.

So many of the issues, controversies and reports in recent years have been related to resourcing, while some have been related to social workers being overburdened with work and having unmanageable case loads. The issues surrounding child protection social workers seem to be particularly acute. The number of child protection social workers leaving the system was quite considerable when we discussed this issue about 12 months ago. What is the current retention rate in that specific category?

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