Madam, – Tuesday night’s Prime Time programme on RTÉ highlighted the need for an out-of-hours social work service in the wake of the publication of the report of the inquiry into the Monageer tragedy.
Social workers remain concerned at the continuing failure of the HSE to establish a nationwide out-of-hours social work service. The Irish Association of Social Workers is calling for its establishment in several pilot sites throughout the Republic as an initial step towards the development of a nationwide out-of-hours social work service.
Two years ago, the Irish Association of Social Workers said that children in our communities are at huge risk due to the failure of the HSE to fill vacant social work posts, to recruit new social work staff and to fully resource regular child protection and welfare social work teams. The lack of an out-of-hours social work service nationally is not acceptable, nor is it acceptable that the regular day services of community care teams are still not fully resourced.
There is already an established and effective out-of-hours social work service that operates in the Dublin region. This service could be used as a template for pilot out-of-hours social work services in other parts of the country prior to the development of such a service nationally.
The association is also calling on the Government to fully resource weekday community care social work teams throughout the country. – Yours, etc,