Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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524. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the extent to which sufficient and appropriately qualified staff remain available to the various offices under her aegis in view of the various responsibilities for which she is responsible and ever increasing demands; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [44002/17]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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As the Deputy is aware, there are four agencies within my remit and I wish to advise as follows:

- The Office of the Ombudsman for Children is independent in its function and reports to the Oireachtas on matters within its remit, as required by the Ombudsman for Children Act 2002. I have forwarded the question to the Office of the Ombudsman for Children and asked that they might correspond with you directly in this matter

- To ensure the provision of a high quality service and to meet statutory requirements Tusla depends on having a sufficient number and appropriately trained workforce in place at national, regional and local levels. Tusla Human Resources, through its Workforce and Recruitment work stream, addresses service delivery needs based on the job orders it receives.

Tusla employs approximately 3,615 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 I am informed by Tusla that with the current available staff, all urgent and emergency cases are dealt with immediately.

More than 70% of Tusla's workforce are Social Work and Social Care staff. Social Work staff must be professionally registered by CORU who independently verify qualifications and professional standing. Tusla is engaging with key stakeholders to examine issues related to the supply and demand for these key grades and in addition is working to deploy multidisciplinary teams to overcome any difficulties in securing qualified staff while ensure a high quality service is delivered in line with statutory requirements.

I am also informed by Tusla that it is its policy to ensure that all staff are trained in child protection and Children First guidelines and staff attend a broad range of child protection training. Tusla'sContinual Professional Development (CPD) Strategyalso aims to ensure that Tusla staff maintain up-to-date knowledge and skills as a foundation for professional practice. The Strategy supports all Tusla staff, regardless of profession or grade, to engage in CPD activities in order to maintain their standards of proficiency and as a safeguard for service users and the general public, as required for professional registration.

-With regard to the Adoption Authority of Ireland, my Department works with the agency to sanction the recruitment of extra staff required by the Authority to meet its statutory requirements.

-With regard to Oberstown Children Detention Campus, my Department works closely with Oberstown and I am informed by them that there are sufficient and appropriately qualified staff for their areas of responsibility on campus at this time.

As additional streams of work emerge in the agencies, it is inevitable that, from time to time, temporary staffing shortfalls may occur. These are remedied at the earliest opportunity.