Patrick Costello (Dublin South Central, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I have a lot to say, so if I am to leave time for answers, I had better take a deep breath and speak quickly. Fostering is the backbone of our child protection system. We are lucky to have such high numbers of foster carers for children in care, as Mr. Gloster has pointed out. I have met excellent foster carers in my time, both in Tusla placements and in private placements. However, the system is struggling overall and I say that from personal experience of being that fostering link worker trying to find a placement and struggling to get it. We have seen in the childcare law reporting project a child who should have come into care but did not do so because there was no foster placement. The child had to come in later on an emergency basis because the safety plan put in place to manage what was at home was not good enough. There have been other cases and I know there are various legal actions in some of these cases that we will not necessarily talk about.

The system is struggling and we are barely above a replacement rate for foster carers when it comes to the national growth and loss number Mr. Gloster talked about. I am curious about the regional disparities. Are there some regions that are losing foster carers overall? There is a significant risk that there will be a collapse in foster caring because it is the backbone, it provides excellent care and we have seen, through the childcare law reporting project and others, what happens when it goes wrong.

I am concerned by the growth of private foster care. Before I get into it I want to differentiate between the individual carers, many of whom are excellent and whom I could not fault in any way, and the companies that have come into the marketplace. Even to use the word "marketplace" around children in care sticks in my throat a little. Private foster carers cost more - about three times as much as public ones. There is evidence from other jurisdictions to suggest private foster care company placements produce worse outcomes for young people. Let us look at out-of-area placements, young people who are placed a distance away from their local social work office. This involves greater levels of trauma, displacement, educational dropout and all these sorts of things. In the one area of Dublin and mid-Leinster, the percentage of private foster placements outside of the area is 84%, whereas in Tusla it is 18%. In Dublin north-east, 90% of private foster placements are out of the area compared with 20% of public placements. In the south east, 66% of private foster care placements are out of the area compared with 2% in Tusla. In the south west, 25% of private placements are out of the area versus 2.5% in public placements. In the west and north west, 14% of private placements are out of the area versus 3.5% of public placements. I seem to have forgotten the number for the midlands. That ends up not only having an impact on the child but also costing time for any social workers who have to visit this placement and child. Time is the most significant and precious resource the agency has and it is the most difficult one to hold.

There is a growth in foster care provision. There is private foster care provision that costs more in money and time. Both of those weaken the agency's ability to recruit and support its foster carers. This is the behaviour of a parasite weakening its host. All the while, these agencies are still making healthy profits at the end of it, and that steady growth in private foster care really concerns me.

That is especially so in view of the fact that foster care is the backbone of the child protection system.

We are here to talk about solutions. One thing I look at is kinship and relative care. It varies from region to region but about 20% to 30% are relative carers. In the Six Counties, it is the other way around. The vast majority of placements are with relatives. What are they doing differently? I appreciate that relative care brings complexity and is not simple, but what are they doing to tap into this resource and recruit carers that we are not doing?

I ask about in-house therapeutic supports for children in care and foster carers. The survey about foster carers has been mentioned and it refers to the difficulty accessing therapeutic supports. We know that from dealing with unmet needs on the committee, which we do a lot, but for children in care it is more complex, given the levels of trauma and the adverse childhood experiences that led them to be in care. In Dublin North-Central, excellent in-house therapeutic supports are provided. It is a flexible service, and it is mentioned in the programme for Government that it is an ambition to roll this out. This enables us to meet the needs the foster carers are crying out for. Many carers I have met said they would be slow to recommend fostering to their friends or anyone who asked. That is a terrible pity because as well as being the best placement for young people, they are our best recruiters.

Will the witnesses speak to the concern about the growth of private foster care? What is going on with kinship care and can we do it better? Will they speak on in-house therapeutic supports?