Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. At the end of April 2023, 75% of cases, some 17,083, had an allocated social worker and 25%, some 5,785, were awaiting allocation of a social worker. My Department has established a joint working group with Tusla to examine issues around social work supply and review initiatives around it. This group includes senior officials from both my Department and Tusla, including the chief social workers from Tusla and my Department, senior HR and other key members including the Health and Social Care Professionals Council, CORU. The working group is examining a range of initiatives for the recruitment of social workers. My Department and Tusla are involved in the social work employers group, which also includes staff from the Probation Service and the HSE, which looks at how to encourage more students to become involved in social work study and the profession. This group has also engaged with the third level colleges offering courses in these areas and is looking at initiatives to further promote the social work profession among potential students to pursue this course of study. This approach has included supporting a number of additional courses in social work study in third level colleges, which have come on board, and ongoing liaison with the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, supporting colleges in consideration of different routes into social work including a potential apprenticeship route.

In addition, Tusla has sponsored a number of internal staff to train as social workers and social care workers and is also exploring an initiative to provide a small bursary to support additional places in existing courses in the Dublin area where, as we know, Tusla has particular recruitment problems. Tusla's social work graduate campaign for 2023 attracted 80% of available graduates. Currently, 123 graduates have accepted permanent positions with Tusla, with a further 40 students currently in receipt of permanent employment opportunities with the agency. In addition, Tusla commenced an international social worker campaign to attract suitably qualified staff from other jurisdictions and has established a return to practice initiative to promote and support qualified social workers to return to the workforce.

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