John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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769. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality if she will review the administrative requirements under the national childcare scheme regarding hourly attendance checks, in cases where creches operate on a fixed-rate billing model; if she will ensure families and providers are not penalised for discrepancies between claimed hours and actual attendance (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [65533/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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Many families avail of the National Childcare Scheme (NCS) as a way to reduce the cost of their early learning and childcare. NCS subsidies are awarded as an hourly rate, along with a maximum number of weekly hours that the subsidy will be paid for. It is between the parent and provider to agree on the hours of childcare based on the family's requirements and what sessions the provider can offer.

The accurate recording of a child’s attendance is a core obligation under the Child Care Act 1991 (Early Years Services) Regulations 2016 for early years providers and is one of the conditions set out in the NCS funding agreement.

As a condition of the scheme, providers are required to maintain an attendance record for each child in the service and provide this record for inspection on request. The attendance record must show the time the child entered and left the service. It is important that these records are maintained both to ensure that Exchequer funding is being used for times the child is actually in care, and as a child safeguarding measure.

This said, the rules of the Scheme are designed to be very flexible and an under-attendance report does not mean that action is immediately taken. In fact, parents can under-attend services for a consecutive 12 weeks before action is taken. The Department recognises that there are many reasons why a child’s attendance may be occasionally less than their agreed hours. For instance, a parent may be able to collect their child earlier than usual because of changes in their work pattern. It is only if continual under-attendance is recorded for a consecutive 12 weeks that the award will be revised to reflect the child’s actual hours.

In full detail, if a child attends fewer than their agreed hours for a consecutive 8 week period, the provider must notify the scheme administrator and a warning will issue to the parent alerting them to the situation. At this point, if the child attends their agreed hours for a full week after this warning is issued, then no further action is taken. However, if the under-attendance continues for a further four consecutive weeks, the number of subsidised hours awarded under the Scheme will be revised to reflect the average number of hours that were actually attended by the child over the previous 12-week period.

Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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770. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality if she is aware of concerns among Tusla staff in relation to changes being brought in from January 2026 which will see social care workers completing assessments on children, which only social workers are qualified to carry out, if she is aware of issues being raised with these changes; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [65560/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The Tusla Integrated Reform Programme is a significant change initiative which aims to improve the way in which Tusla delivers services to children and families and improve Tusla’s staff experience. Regions and Areas will be more equitable in size and will ensure that the totality of resources are targeted to where they most needed. The workforce will be multidisciplinary ensuring there is a diverse knowledge and skills base to respond to the multi-faceted needs of children and families in Ireland today.

Like other European agencies Tusla is experiencing significant difficulties in recruiting and retaining social work practitioners and Tusla areas currently have a significant number of social work vacancies that it cannot fill, creating an emergency situation in some teams.

This has resulted in a risk management approach being adopted leading to areas prioritising social work resources to children where their knowledge and skill is most required and then maximising the knowledge and skill of other professions where they can competently respond to children needs. All this work continues to be overseen by social work managers.

Tusla wants to ensure that all professions operate within their proficiencies and are supported to develop and enhance that knowledge and skills overtime through continued professional development. Social workers and social care leader/workers are highly trained professionals, and Tusla wants to ensure that the work assigned to them is consistently in line with that competence and is always supported by effective supervision and oversight by a competent manager.

Tusla have developed a draft case allocation framework that sets out consistent approach to the allocation of cases all of which remain under the governance of social work management. The framework will ensure all professional staff are supported within their level of competency while continuing to have social work management oversight in their work ensuring effective case management.

The draft framework is an initial step to support a nationally consistent and competency-based approach and is currently subject to review and consultation by Forsa in line with agreed processes.

Budget 2026 saw Tusla receive increased funding of €165m to continue providing vital child welfare and family support services bringing its funding up by 14 per cent to €1.37 billion.

This money will ensure that Tusla can continue to manage over 100,000 referrals annually. This investment supports Tusla’s multi-pronged, sustained strategy to address the recruitment and retention of child protection staff. In total, Tusla is funded to have over 3,200 social workers and social care workers in 2026 to deal with this number of referrals. Tusla is faced with an ever increasing number of referrals with greater complexity, as well as issues relating to social worker recruitment and retention.

There are Programme for Government commitments to support Tusla and ensure their structures are robust, responsive and capable of safeguarding every child in need, and to ensure that Tusla is supported in recruiting and retaining vital frontline staff and foster carers. The Department has ensured that social worker staffing is included as a priority in Tusla's Performance Framework 2024-2026 and the Department is supporting Tusla with a number of initiatives to retain and recruit social workers, and other disciplines, to meet demand for services.

Budget 2026 includes funding for innovative “earn and learn” social work and social care work apprenticeship courses programmes and sponsorship. University College Cork introduced two new pathways into social work in 2024, which is expected to increase annual graduate output by 20%.

In relating to the difficulties in recruiting additional social workers, there is a commitment in the programme for Government to double the number of college places for social workers. In June the Government approved an expansion in training places for a range of health and social care professionals. This will provide up to 361 additional student places by 2028, including college places for social workers.