Health board silent on childcare staffing claim

Dublin's Northern Area Health Board yesterday declined to comment on a claim made in the High Court that it was operating a moratorium on childcare staff recruitment.

A spokesman said the case would be mentioned today, and it would be "inappropriate" to comment.

Meanwhile, a lecturer in social work at Waterford Institute of Technology claimed recruitment problems in the sector had been exacerbated by the Health Service Employers Agency's refusal to accredit applicants for social work in the community.

Mr John Byrne said social workers were only accredited for years worked in a specific area. "So you could be 10 years in mainstream social work and it would count for nothing when you join a high-support unit.

"The HSEA would say such work is different. But it's different in name only because all of the kids coming through high-support units would previously have come through mainstream services."

Mr Byrne added there was a higher than average number of unqualified or inexperienced people working in high-support units, and this provided a further obstacle to recruitment. The interim findings of a national study of residential childcare which he has conducted found only 44 per cent of workers in the sector had a minimum national diploma in social care.