Questions were raised about the increasing number of child abuse cases, and the overburdening of social care workers in the budget debate yesterday.

Minister of Culture and Social Rehabilitation, Dale Butler spoke for almost two and a half hours outlining the programmes and spending in both family and social services and financial assistance.

In the speech he announced that the past year saw 536 children referred to social services for abuse, 155 of which were unsubstantiated and 227 were.

Eighty-five were suspected, but there was not enough evidence for legal action.

Mr. Butler said it saddened him to see these numbers and wished he had a magic wand to make it go away, but thanked the hard-working staff who continued to strive for better care of the children.

He said: "Why is this happening? There's a group that's after our young people with drugs and we hear about abuse on the Internet.

"Twenty-one children referred had parents where substance abuse was a problem, which is why we worked hard to move-out a National Drug Policy."

Mr. Butler also revealed that 142 of the children referred had received foster care homes, 17 because parents were diagnosed with psychiatric problems.

And 125 were brought in because they were in a single parent home, which could not cope with them.

Also mentioned was the Happy Valley School or special needs school, Dame Marjorie Bean's Hope Academy, which the Minister says always receives far more applications from parents then it can handle.

Following the specific and detailed speech, shadow minister of Family Development and Social Rehabilitation, Donte Hunt jumped from his seat to speak on the issues.

Unfortunately his excitement and nerves may have thwarted his speech as a near fainting spell caused Mr. Butler to call for a doctor and the Premier Dr. Ewart Brown crossing the floor to help.

After a 15-minute adjournment and Mr. Hunt leaving for some air, Mark Pettingill, Justice and Attorney General took the floor to question how the money spent on services only seems to be playing catch-up with increasing abuse.

He said: "It's no disrespect to the Minister. We are keeping pace with trends in the wrong direction. Five hundred and thirty six new children referred for abuse in a year and I see a trend in the upward direction.

"We need to find a way to address these problems. When you see there's a trend in an increase in children abused I can assure you it's because we are seeing an increase in drug problems.

"We are all failing as a country. We need to see the Minister Dale Butler given more money, but more money in the right places.

"Maybe we need more staffing in this area."

Causing much amusement to the Government was the calls for more money to be given to the brief rather then the usual calls by the opposition to cut back.

But shadow Minister of Works and Engineering Patricia Gordon-Pamplin, said it was necessary if the increasing number of cases were to be dealt with productively.

She said: "The case load per case manager has increased significantly this year. We need to increase the number of case workers or find a way to lower the number."