Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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557. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs if she is satisfied that her office has access to the requisite number of qualified staff to ensure the operation of children's protection as envisaged in the Children First legislation; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [31536/17]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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I wish to inform the Deputy that the Children First Act 2015 was enacted in November 2015 and it is the intention that it will be fully commenced by the end of 2017.

Each Government Department is responsible for making the necessary arrangements to ensure compliance with the Children First Legislation and Guidance in the Department and in its funded services.

My Department will be responsible for compliance with Children First among the staff of my Department and my Department's funded services.

To assist in this, officials in my Department participate in the statutory Children First Interdepartmental Implementation Group. My Department also has an internal Departmental Children First Oversight Group whose purpose is to make the necessary preparations within my Department for full commencement of the Children First legislation. All Units of my Department are currently reviewing the range of their responsibilities to identify their safeguarding responsibilities.

Finally, the Management Board of my Department monitors progress to ensure that all staff in my Department will be in a position to fully comply with the provisions of the legislation and to ensure that the necessary governance assurance mechanisms will be in place in relation to the relevant services funded by my Department.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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558. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the degree to which the child protection services have the necessary resources and staff available to them to meet the demand; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [31537/17]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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Tusla employs approximately 3,637 whole-time equivalent (WTE) staff and the vast majority of these are focused on responding to the needs of children and families at risk. I wish to assure the Deputy that with the current available staff all urgent and emergency cases, such as situations of abandonment, allegations of physical and sexual abuse, parental ill-health and the need to find an immediate placement, or a threat to the safety or life of a child by a third party, are dealt with immediately. My Department also provides oversight to ensure that the quality and performance of social work service is maintained to deal with service demands.

I am aware also that to ensure Tusla staff are able to support children and families it is the organisation's policy to ensure all staff are trained in Child Protection and Children First guidelines and staff attend a broad range of Child Protection Training including:

- Core Court Room Skills

- Introduction to Court Skills

- Domestic Sexual & Gender Based Violence (DSGBV) – Awareness & Response

- Practice Development for Newly Appointed Social workers

- Supervision - Making the most of Supervision for Supervisees

- Supervision - Staff Supervision Skills Training for Supervisors

- Foundations for Assessment

- Evidence Informed Practitioner Programme

- Legal Briefing Seminar

However, I am very mindful of the correlation between recruitment and cases where a child does not have a dedicated social worker and the need for Tusla to closely link its recruitment programme with operational decisions to effect improvements. As part of my regular engagement with the Board, I have requested that the Agency provides me with an assessment of recruitment for the remainder of 2017, linked to specific targets to reduce the number of children awaiting allocation of a dedicated social worker. I have requested that Tusla develops a robust workforce plan which addresses succession planning, retention, career pathways, training and development, future workforce needs, priority gaps and a strategy for tackling the priority gaps and reducing unallocated cases.

Tusla’s 2017 recruitment target is 369 additional staff across its grades. Tusla’s social work target for the end of 2017 is 1,520 whole time equivalent and Tusla appears to be on track to meet this target. However, it is unlikely that 1,520 WTE social workers will be sufficient to execute Tusla’s current and future responsibilities without changes to the composition of Tusla social work teams. Accordingly, Tusla is evaluating 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 cost effective services. Part of the 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.

Tusla has also appointed a dedicated Workforce Planner to work closely with Tusla services/operations with a view to identifying the areas’ required resource mix reflecting the ongoing challenge of recruiting social workers and the potential for more social care workers, family support etc.

I am confident that the Exchequer funding of €713m in 2017 will provide Tusla with significantly increased capacity to respond to areas of identified risk and anticipated demand and to progress a number of key service developments which will ensure better outcomes for vulnerable children, and families, who need our services and support.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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559. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the degree to which she remains satisfied regarding the adequacy of available facilities to ensure the follow-up required in cases of children at risk or reported to be at risk in various settings; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [31538/17]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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Under the Child Care Act 1991, as amended, and the Child and Family Agency Act 2013, Tusla, the Child and Family Agency, has a statutory duty to promote the welfare of children who are not receiving adequate care and protection. Tusla provides a continuum of care supports and interventions for 'at risk' children and their families, including early intervention and prevention services, family support services and community based services, such as Meitheal.

The State only intervenes in family life in exceptional cases. However, if there is a child protection concern, Tusla can investigate and take the child into care if necessary. The immediate safety of the child is the first consideration. When necessary, an initial assessment will take place. This assessment identifies the risk and protective factors in each given situation so that informed decisions and recommendations can be made.

Based on the information available, the duty social worker, in conjunction with the team leader, gives the case a priority level of high, medium and low, depending on the risk identified in the information available. Following the initial assessment, the case remains with the duty team, who monitor risk, while awaiting its allocation to a social worker. The priority level may change where new information shows an increased or decreased risk to the child.

If a report to the social work department indicates immediate and serious risk, urgent action must be taken to protect the child and in this instance a child may be placed in care. The separation of children from their parents is only considered when all alternative means of protection have been exhausted.

In 2017, Tusla has been allocated Exchequer funding of €713 million to extend and improve the services it provides. This represents an increase of €37 million from 2016.