Tusla has been slammed for failing children through its high turnover of social workers, a TD said yesterday.
Fianna Fail’s spokeswoman on youth affairs Anne Rabbitte claimed the “revolving door” of temporary staff at the child protection agency is failing vulnerable children.
The number of agency employees increased by 125% from 2016 to 2019. At the same time, the number of directly employed social workers has grown by just 3.8%.
Ms Rabbitte said: “There is not the same permanency provided by an agency social worker to a child which is important in their care and support.
“There is a recruitment and retention crisis in Tusla. Ultimately it is the child that loses out on the benefit of a long-term social worker. Children’s Minister Katherine Zappone needs to get a hold of this.”
Meanwhile, a HIQA report released this month found shortcomings in foster care services in Carlow, Kilkenny and South Tipperary.
Inspectors found the allocation of social workers to children in care by Tusla was “chaotic and not child-centred”.
Youngsters experienced frequent changes to their allocated staff and spent long periods without one.
The report found: “Children who were visited were not visited in line with statutory requirements and the quality and oversight of the visits was poor,” the report states.
It stated there were still a high number of social work vacancies and retention of staff remained “very poor.”
