Tony McLoughlin (Sligo-Leitrim, Fine Gael)
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612. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs her views on whether all managers and senior staff at Tusla have the required capacity, skills and qualifications to do their dedicated jobs correctly; if there are areas within the organisation which need urgent attention in the short term in order to bring them up to the required standard; if so, the areas of concern; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [15122/17]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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The area of child protection and welfare social work is one of the most challenging areas of work for any professional and involves working closely with some of the most vulnerable and marginalised individuals and groups in society. To this end, I would like to acknowledge the dedication of colleagues in Tusla to improving the lives of children and families that access our services.

As you will be aware, Tusla has received exchequer funding of €713m in 2017. This increase of €37m over 2016 funding will allow Tusla to proceed with its ambitious on-going programme of service reform and transformation which is underway, with a particular focus on governance; risk management; health and safety; and quality assurance and service monitoring to support the delivery of front line services, all of which I fully support.

As Tusla matures, it continues to evaluate management and staff skills mix with a view to service enhancement, including reviewing the roles of family support workers; social care workers in the community; and administrative structures to support the delivery of more efficient and more cost-effective services. Part of this evaluation also includes looking at enhanced job roles, increasing multi-disciplinary team-working in an effort to alleviate pressure; redesigning tasks; and promoting greater efficiency in working. I particularly welcome Tusla's focus in 2017 on leadership development and supporting the forthcoming workforce development plan through learning and development and succession planning.

The establishment of Tusla's in-house recruitment function,Tusla Recruit, marked an important milestone in building its internal capacity to recruit and I trust that recruitment timelines will improve further during 2017 with the development of Tusla's in-house Central Vetting Bureau in Q1, 2017. Tusla continues to have ambitious recruitment targets, expecting to recruit an additional 369 whole time equivalent posts across a range of professional, para-professional and business support functions before the end of 2017.

However, a concern for me is that despite Tusla’s increased efforts during 2016, including an intensive graduate recruitment campaign in Ireland (including Norther Ireland), recruitment of social workers continued to be very challenging, requiring significant recruitment activity to achieve a modest increase in whole time equivalent and compensate for normal worker attrition rates with which Tusla must contend. It must also be noted that only 250 social work graduates are produced annually in Ireland and Tusla is competing with the rest of the market for this limited pool and so it is likely that the recruitment of social workers will continue to be difficult for the coming years.

However I am confident that Tusla's continued focus on recruitment of appropriate staff in 2017 will support the improving trend with regard to unallocated cases and continue to improve the supports available to front line services.