Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The point I am making is that that money would provide 300 children with the care they need 365 days of the year, and 800 would get a voice in court. When I talk about choices I am asking if we, as a State, are happy to allow that kind of wanton waste and exaggerated costs and fees to give the child a voice in court when we neglect so many other areas? To put that in context, the €3.5 million would provide 300 children with a roof over their heads, love, warmth and food 365 days a year and would provide a voice in court for 800 children. I am not saying that the voice in court is not needed. Of course it is needed, but there is something wrong if we are allowing that to happen, and it is our fault. I do not expect Barnardos to have raised the cost of guardians ad litem, GALs, as an issue. It would not make any sense for it to do that, but we, and our predecessors, should have examined this issue and asked questions about it. That is where I am coming from in this regard.

I want to make a point about taking the service from Tusla to ensure independence. I do not accept that argument. Tusla has many franchises and avenues. To distil that down to the logic the witness is putting forward, I should not be allowed comment on Tusla in terms of the foster care system. We are all impacted by and connected through Tusla. It would be great if another budget was created somewhere else. A previous speaker made the point that this did not come out of the Tusla budget but if we create another agency, more layers of management and accountability or whatever, that will swallow up massive amounts of the finite resources available that I want to see going to the areas where they are needed. Somebody mentioned early trauma, intervention and care. That is a huge area and if we could get the funding to address that, it would massively transform the area of children in care. There are many possibilities in that regard but we have to watch where the finances are allocated. I do not believe taking it from the remit of Tusla makes any sense on a financial level.