Since the beginning of 2016 Tusla has recruited 167 social workers, 64 have resigned and 10 have retired.
In this context, I strongly support Tusla's three-year plan that will provide extra staffing to meet critical service concerns. These include children who have no allocated social worker. The plan involves increasing overall staffing levels in Tusla by 323 whole-time equivalents, with an investment of €19.4m over the period 2016-2018. We allocated €6.1m for this purpose in 2016 for unallocated cases, to fund a net increase of 168 social workers by the end of this year. It will be important to recruit other grades also, to ensure an efficient service with the right mix of staffing including family support staff and administrative support.
Tusla has been pro-active in its efforts to meet its recruitment targets in a competitive environment. Progress is being made and at the end of May 2016, in excess of 170 additional staff were employed directly by Tusla compared to the same period in 2015. This includes more than 100 social workers. Furthermore, Tusla Recruit is currently interviewing in excess of 300 applicants for its graduate intake later this year. Planning for the 2017 graduate recruitment campaign has commenced and will include colleges in Derry, Belfast and Manchester.