Minister for Children James Reilly has warned that his department will have to take action against law firms and lawyers who present bills for payment years after the service has been provided.
Dr Reilly said that “we had one situation where a firm had not put in a bill for nearly four years and it was over €1 million”.
He said they would have to consider “some arrangement” in consideration with the Attorney General.
“Yes we demand prompt payment by Government departments but equally there should be some format for people to present bills in a reasonable timely fashion and I don’t consider four years late to be reasonable or timely.”
The Minister was responding to Independent TD Tom Fleming who raised concerns about the numbers of social workers in place because of the 9,000 cases of abuse, neglect or welfare concerns over children at risk who were waiting to be allocated a social worker.
Mr Fleming said 3,250 were high priority cases, while 4,700 were deemed to be medium priority while 1,500 were considered low priority. The number of children at risk increased by 98 per cent over the last seven years from 21,000 to 41,600 in 2014.
The Kerry South TD pointed to the serious legacy debt faced by the Child and Family Agency, with costs likely to overrun by €20 million.
He was concerned that this was impacting on the service and the number of social workers employed.
Dr Reilly said of legacy debts, and particularly in relation to legal bills, that “this whole area is being aggressively addressed now Mr Gordon Jeyes”, head of the Child and Family Agency. “That bill will come down,” the Minister said.
Referring to bills not being submitted for years, he said “it’s very hard to predict with certainty where you’re going when you’ve that sort of” billing.
Mr Fleming said budget and staffing levels were not reflecting the increasing demand and he called on the Minister to use his office to immediately intervene to address these matters.
Dr Reilly said that each of the 3,250 high priority cases had been “reviewed by a social worker and they have been triaged” and awaited the allocation of a full-time social worker.
He said it was not lack of funding that was at issue “but we actually have difficulty in fulfilling some of the posts we have”.
Mr Fleming said some social worker teams were operating at 70 per cent of the required staffing levels.
Dr Reilly said “all identified vacancies are the subject of a recruitment process to ensure they are filled at the earliest opportunity”.
Fianna Fáil spokesman on children Robert Troy said social workers were "fire fighting" in dealing with cases because there were insufficient numbers of social workers.
He said 106 filled over the first eight months of this year and a further 148 posts at various stages of recruitment. There were 1,388 whole-time equivalent social workers in employment and “there has been a rigorous system of risk analysis to ensure social worker levels do not fall to a dangerous level”.
Mr Troy said that social workers on maternity leave or unpaid leave were not being replaced.
The Minister said a pilot maternity leave cover scheme where maternity-related vacancies could be filled through a 12-month temporary contract. Thirty places had been filled this way.
