Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for being late. I will not ask any of the questions already asked. I will wait for answers to what Deputy Funchion has asked. Earlier Deputy O'Sullivan spoke about the various parties with whom we engage and we spoke about the Garda. I assume we engage with the Department of Education and Skills, the teaching profession and preschool officers because they have a huge role. I would like to hear how we engage with them. I have a particular experience of a case in my constituency where a teacher was not included in a decision involving four children in foster care and they ended up being removed. There were siblings among them and they ended up being divided. Special resource hours had been in place. It was a catastrophe for the children. How do we engage with teaching staff, who have a huge role to play?

What supports and services are available for grandparents in Ireland who take their grandchildren from the UK into care? They do not fall under fostering in Ireland, but they are given an allowance by the UK to mind children here. How do we support these families who take in children from the UK? How will this continue after Brexit? The Department supports children, but given the sterling differentiation where an allowance is paid from the UK, how do we give a wrap-around service to support these grandparents and the staff on the ground?

Tusla has received much criticism this morning. What can the committee do to support it? If it finds the Department or a committee is falling down and we could help, I would like to hear how we could be proactive in helping and supporting it. I welcome the fact Tusla is speaking about apprenticeships because we have a recruitment issue.

Five years ago, the advocacy group in Galway, Youth Advocate Programmes, YAP, had a budget to manage 60 or 70 cases. Three years ago, this decreased to 30 cases because of funding through the Tusla budget. At present, it manages only 25 cases. If it drops to fewer than 25 cases, YAP in Galway will not exist. It is in an ideal position to look after level 1 and 2 children and support the role of Tusla. It has the experience and is crying out to do more work. Why do we not use more of these groups? They have a wealth of knowledge. One does not need to be a social care worker to be very good advocate. How do we engage with professional people such as those working in Sugru, which is non-profit? We have to reach out to be able to look after the 5,400 children who do not have social care workers. The different levels demonstrate the amount of care we need. How do we engage with groupings in order that we can sieve through the cases very quickly to give support?