Social work pledge unlikely to meet child needs

THE pledge by Minister for Children Barry Andrews (July 29) to fill 270 vacant social work posts in child protection services indicates that, on average, each local health office is down 8.5 posts.

If there is no embargo on HSE recruitment of social workers, why have thesevacancies arisen at all?

Full capacity under the current ratio of staff to needs would not adequately deal with existing cases, much less make inroads into the backlog lists of calls made by the public. So how does the minister propose that the service should deal with a possible increase in calls arising from the new leverage being placed on organisations to report suspicions of child abuse?