Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

In the absence of time and because we have spent 45 minutes on three items, I will be brief and to the point. I welcome the Minister of State to the House and congratulate him on his reappointment. I am delighted for him. He does an amazing job. Despite all our challenges and talk on Commencement Matters, it is clearly a very difficult time and resources are a key factor in many of the responses the Minister of State has to give us. We respect that as people who work in here. We understand.

To get to the point, we know from the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Katherine Zappone, that there are more than 5,000 people who have been approved for and should have a social worker. They fall into the two categories of children at risk and children who are vulnerable. This is a designated social worker as per best practice and Government policy, which is to say the policy of the Department of Children and Youth Affairs. When the Minister was here recently, she told us there were 25,387 cases of children with welfare or child protection concerns of whom her Department was aware. She also said there was a shortfall in need of over 5,000 in relation to social workers. What is the latest update on that? With the indulgence of the Leas-Chathaoirleach, I might take a moment in a supplementary to follow up on the response.