Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Being conscious of the time, I will deal quickly with two issues. First, I formerly second the amendment to the Order of Business that Senator Warfield outlined.

I will touch briefly on last night's "RTÉ Investigates". Without commenting in detail, it is timely and appropriate that we would have the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Zappone, come back to the House. The Minister was here previously and we had a long and protracted debate about Tusla. It was clear from last night's programme that those three brave women who had to put in the public domain their story did a service to the people of this country to give confidence to others to be able to come forward and report what is horrific abuse. I pay tribute to "RTÉ Investigates" for the sensitive way in which it dealt with that particular programme.

I ask the Leader if he would consider, when appropriate, in the timescale the Minister has available to her, that she could come specifically to talk about progress regarding Tusla and maybe to touch on some of the commitments that the Minister gave us on her last visit here when she talked about the need to increase the number of social workers. The Minister explained that she was seeking further funding from Government. In last night's programme, yet again, we heard stories from people regarding the shortage of social workers. That is not the Minister's fault. That is not the Government's fault. We need to be seen. We need to do everything possible to train, secure, fund and resource social workers to support children who are in care who cannot be fostered for various reasons, but also to monitor and act as an advocate and a link for them within the social services.