Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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97. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the extent to which statutory and voluntary child support services continue to have adequate resources available to them to meet their current and ongoing requirements; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36768/15]

James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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There is a wide range of child and family support services available through both the statutory and non statutory sectors. These include services provided by Government Departments, other state agencies and an extensive network of non-governmental organisations.

Tusla, the Child and Family Agency, allocates funding of approximately €100m to 700 voluntary organisations to provide services on its behalf. The organisations involved include large “not-for-profit” organisations, private providers and small groups.

In the area of child welfare and protection services we now have, with the establishment of the Tusla, the necessary structure to ensure the provision of a more responsive and integrated service to children, young people and families at risk. The Agency, in discharging its functions, places a strong emphasis on prevention, early intervention, family support, therapeutic and care interventions, all of which are key to the provision of integrated, multi-disciplinary services for vulnerable children and families.

All social work referrals are managed through the Standard Business Process and all reports of concern for the safety and welfare of a child come into the Duty/Intake team for assessment. All staff receiving such referrals are professionally qualified social workers who have been trained in the duty system. They are required to treat seriously all child welfare and child protection concerns regardless of the source. A rigorous system of risk analysis is in place in each area to ensure that staffing numbers do not fall to unsafe levels and gaps identified through this process are addressed with the additional resource of temporary staff as required.

As the Deputy will be aware, I announced a significant increase in the funding allocation to Tusla for next year. Tusla will have available to it some €676 million in funding, representing an increase of €38 million over 2015. This significant increase in funding will allow Tusla to address critical issues such as the number of children and families awaiting services.

It will also facilitate the improvement of special care facilities and will support further roll out of services such as the National Child Care Information System. It will also allow the organisation to modernise the current ICT infrastructure to support frontline work and data management. Improved services will have significant long-term benefits both for children and families, as well as the State, in terms of health and wellbeing, educational and economic outcomes.