Worker shortages forces new child initiative

Social workers and health boards have agreed a new initiative to ease the crisis in child protection services in counties Dublin, Wicklow and Kildare.

In a bid to cut down on the growing number of child protection cases, only emergency cases for children at risk will be dealt with on the day of referral.

The initiative is being seen as formal recognition of the resource crisis in child protection services.

Impact’s Gerry Dolan says more than half of social work posts in some communities are vacant.

"Some of the teams were at half compliment. It was impossible to suggest that we could be giving a full service," he said.

"We had to size it down and assign a mechanism to it. First of all accept the fact that there was a crisis there and then put in place a structured emergency service to deal with the situation pending a full compliment of social workers," said Dolan.