Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Costello. A draft retention framework is being trialled in a number of Tusla regions where the issue of retention is very significant. There are other areas where the issue is not as significant. The turnover in social workers is approximately 7.3% across the organisations, but there are variations. Some regions are regarded as tougher and may have built up issues, case backlogs and the like over the years. The pilot scheme is being undertaken in order to support retention within areas. If the Deputy would like a note on this matter at some stage, I would be happy to provide one.

I recognise the Deputy's comments on the move to mobile working across Tusla. It was done extremely quickly, with almost 80% of the organisation being easily facilitated in working from home. It should be recognised that the organisation responded in such an effective way.

I agree with the Deputy regarding the reliance on the private sector. He has raised this matter with me a number of times in respect of foster care, including via parliamentary questions, but the issue also arises in respect of private residential care. The growth in residential care generally is one of the reasons for a significant overspend in Tusla's 2020 allocation. The Irish Government Economic and Evaluation Service, IGEES, has just completed a report on the use of residential care, in particular private residential care. That report was just completed this week, so I have only scanned over the initial headlines and have not gone through it in detail yet. However, I believe it will be important in giving us and Tusla guidance on how to deal with this issue. Private residential care is demand led. If Tusla has children and young people who are in extremely difficult situations, for example, because they are vulnerable or gang-related or other criminal issues arise, then it must place them in secure and safe accommodation. That accommodation must be found, which is the core reason for the overspend. The complexity of the cases that Tusla is dealing with is also growing all the time.

I take the Deputy's point about fostering. I see that the Chair is wearing her Tusla fostering campaign badge. That campaign was last week. Tusla is constantly trying to recruit more foster carers, but it runs a campaign on a particular week every year. I am happy to support that as much as possible.

Of children in care, 91% are in foster homes. That is a good figure. I would like to get it higher, but we should recognise that the vast majority of children in care are in foster placements. We are considering a number of innovative measures in this regard. Previously, the Deputy asked about fostering in the Traveller community. We are considering a particular scheme to help foster parents in the Traveller and Roma communities so that children can be fostered in more appropriate settings.

I take the point about measurements of success during the year and the best use of our resources. We can feed that information back. I am trying to make sense of some of my notes here.

The Deputy remarked on Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures, BOBF, the national strategy for children and young people. It will end this year and we will introduce a successor strategy next year. I had a meeting with the advisory council approximately two weeks ago and we started discussing the initial steps towards drafting the new process. We want to include the Department's initial set of new responsibilities because some of the issues to do with direct provision, LGBTI+ and Traveller and Roma communities could feed into the new BOBF strategy. I am looking forward to having the new strategy published next year. I also hope to have the new child poverty reduction targets set out in the new strategy.