Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for her response.

We recently learned that since 2016, there has been a 125% increase in agency social workers being used by Tusla while at the same time it has actively recruited 3.8%. Tusla CEO, Mr. Bernard Gloster, appeared before the Joint Committee on Children and Youth Affairs a few weeks ago and explained to us how it is going to try to transition some of the agency staff on to the payroll of Tusla. I advocate this because children need continuation and support. When one considers that there are 6,200 cases of unallocated social workers at the moment, there is an urgency to this.

What have we done with the universities? Mr. Gloster mentioned Maynooth at the time of his visit. What programmes are in place so that we can increase the intake from 250 upwards to meet the demand?

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