Child and Family Agency
Dail Éireann — 2026-04-23
============================================================

Ruairí Ó Murchú (SF), Louth

I appreciate the Minister's answer and that she will come back to me in writing in relation to the case management system. We definitely need to ensure we have a system that works. I also acknowledge the work being done in relation to training and recruitment. I ask for information on how many social workers have been recruited, how many we have and what the deficit is at this point. The information provided to the committee is that for social workers the deficit is approximately 300 and for social care workers it is 100. I also ask for information on the supports provided to those on the front line who are doing huge work.
We need to deal with the issue of special care facilities so we can move away from special emergency arrangements. Those who are the first port of call need to be given protections that will enable them to deal with their caseload and triage properly. As I nearly always say, we need to get early intervention in place. We have to give it a steroid injection or something because we are not where we should be in relation to the supports required by individuals and families.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-04-23/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:48+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-23