Seanad debates

Wednesday, 11 March 2009

Adoption Bill 2009: Committee Stage (Resumed)

 

2:00 pm

Photo of Paul BradfordPaul Bradford (Fine Gael)

I acknowledge and respect the Minister of State's response to my query, which was not particularly well researched or thought out. I was interested that the Minister of State said he would be concerned about the danger of drawing staff away from the work of child protection and welfare towards the assessment side of their duties. Therein lies the difficulty from a work and staff point of view. Obviously child welfare must be paramount and social workers are called on at all times of the day or night, seven days a week to respond to crises. We should hope that there would be sufficient staff resources for assessment duties and that it would not be the one or two hours' work that staff would do at the end of the week after having spent many stressful hours doing other child welfare duties. It was a telltale and genuine comment from the Minister of State. Obviously there is a difficulty with the personnel numbers on the ground doing this very important work.

I accept the comment of the Minister of State on the state of the national finances. His views are readily acknowledged by all responsible political parties. It is interesting that in one sense the work of adoption assessment is almost being slotted in — I will not say as an afterthought to the other duties. However, it is not getting the majority of hours available. I acknowledge that the other child welfare work is crucial and cannot be delayed or deferred by a minute. It surprises me somewhat that there appears to be a shortage of appropriate personnel to carry out both of these very important duties.

Comments

No comments

Log in or join to post a public comment.