THE Government has so far failed to fulfil a promise to appoint 270 extra social workers in the wake of the shock revelations of the Ryan report on institutional abuse.In the wake of the report, which revealed a litany of abuse inside institutions over several decades after it was published in May, Children's Minister Barry Andrews promised another 270 social workers as part of his action plan to implement its recommendations.
But at the end of September there were 2,161 full-time social workers, down from 2,236 at the end of December, and only one-third of this total are involved in childcare work.
A spokesman for Mr Andrews said: "The Health Service Executive (HSE) has advised the department that it expects to have in excess of 2,300 whole-time equivalent social workers in post by year end.
"The HSE has undertaken a national recruitment drive in this area. In order to assist with this process, a special derogation has been given to the post of social worker under the public service recruitment moratorium. The minister is fully committed to the recruitment of an additional 270 social workers in line with the Ryan report implementation plan."
However, internal figures from the Health Service Executive (HSE) reveal that it is struggling to recruit enough social workers and it is trying to woo Irish graduates in the UK back to Ireland.
The HSE said the drop is due in part to a re-classification of social work staff who continue to work with patients and clients with a different title.
The aim this year was to recruit around 311 social workers -- including 130 who would work in the child care and child protection areas. As of early October, 197 of these were recruited but over 70pc of these were already working in the HSE in temporary or junior positions.
This means the level of social workers at the disposal of people in need has hardly changed.
And 39 social workers are due to retire in 2009, while another 45 will retire in 2010.
The HSE said it is trying to attract qualified graduates who are currently employed outside the publicly-funded health service.
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