Mr. Fred McBride:

I will answer Deputy Funchion's questions. The chief operations officer and I had a look at the cases on "Prime Time". One of them is still in a court process and is subject to the highest level of scrutiny. We are in constant discussion with the court on the management of this case, and I will not say any more other than this. We have a close eye on these cases. I will also not go into the details of the other case that was mentioned. I mentioned an example of two children in a foster care placement, one of whom was allegedly harming the other. We do not just remove one of the children and potentially cause huge damage to that child to protect the other child. It is much more complex than that. We have an obligation to both those children and some solution needs to be found. I said in the media recently that if one sibling in a family was harming another, the family would not throw out one of them. It would find a solution. The family would increase supervision, have a safety plan and talk to the children. Removing a child is not always the answer, especially when it can create significant lifelong trauma and loss. The notion one child can be protected by seriously damaging another is not a notion with which Tulsa holds any truck. We make much more complicated, complex and sophisticated decisions than that. An extremely simplistic way that some of these things are presented in the press does not help in this situation.

Deputy Rabbitte asked whether there is anything the committee or others could do to assist and support. One thing I would say is committee members should not believe what they read in the media and should not take it as face value, because it is usually much more complex than how it is presented in the media.