Ciara Conway (Waterford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their excellent presentations. Many of the questions I wanted to raise have been asked, so I will not repeat them, but I will tease out details of some of the agency's practices. Policy development is Ms Mugan's area. Some aftercare services are already being provided, albeit hit and miss, but what practices will change after the legislation has passed? How can we ensure better outcomes for young people? Many people have campaigned for this legislation for a long time.

I am probably right in saying that the majority of children in care have successful foster placements and remain with those families until they are 21, 22 or 23 years of age. Is there scope in the Bill to give such children a status? I know of many cases involving 21 year olds and 23 year olds whose foster parents view them as their own children. However, foster parents are not allowed to leave more than €26,000 to their foster children in their wills. I know of foster parents who never spent a cent of their foster care allowances. Instead, they saved that money to buy their foster children properties, but they are not allowed to sign them over as intended. Following the children's rights referendum, we have it within our gift to ensure that children who were not eligible for adoption previously can now be adopted. In the eyes of the law, however, persons who are over 18 years of age and whose foster parents and foster brothers and sisters view them as their own children and siblings, respectively, are treated differently. I would love to be able to do something about that situation.

What supports do we provide to foster carers? The best outcome for young people is a stable relationship. This Bill should make a difference to the supports available to foster carers so as to ensure stable early placements for children. Children aged between eight and 11 years begin exhibiting difficult behaviours regardless of whether they are in care. A book on the subject - I cannot remember by whom - points out that, whereas a child in care who kicks or slams a door is interpreted as having anger or defiance issues, a parent's own seven or eight year old at home is defined as being a moody little so-and-so. We need to support foster parents to ensure that children who are in care have good outcomes. Aftercare would allow them to remain part of those families.

A minority do not have good outcomes. The children most at risk of dying are those who are difficult to engage. If we put in place barriers such as a six-month period and a person who is six months under 21 or 23 years of age - whichever it is - knocks on a carer's door after that time has lapsed, it would be a real indictment of our services if that young person could not be helped. We should be able to provide help. This is what people in the service want. People whom I worked with ten or 12 years ago still ask me for this, that or the other.

There are examples of good practice; it is not all bad. I have worked closely with many survivors of institutional abuse. The local authorities in Waterford were wonderful in helping the survivors with their housing needs. One criterion is that a person must be from the area. While a particular survivor may have been raised in Artane or Galway, he or she may originally be from Waterford. Survivors do not need to go through the ins and outs of it all with the staff or be humiliated or abused again through the retelling of their stories. This type of understanding is something that local authorities must work towards when dealing with children who are exiting care. Children who are from Waterford could be placed in Kildare or Dublin.