Ms Aine McGuirk:

I would like to answer the question about the recruitment and retention of foster carers. First, however, I thank the public representatives who are here today. I sat at a similar committee meeting where the discussion was about the recruitment and retention of social workers and there was a much smaller number in attendance. I am delighted there are so many people here today because it shows a fantastic interest in the children of our nation, including the most vulnerable children, and, as Senator Ruane noted, an interest in the most vulnerable parents in the nation.

The recruitment and retention of social workers is key. There is a shortage of staff in every sector across all of what used to be called the allied healthcare professions. The IASW worked with the HSE and Tusla to make the case for the inclusion of social workers on the critical skills list, which we achieved. There are just not enough people. It is like we have a big pot of jobs and too few people running around inside it. This shortage means children who are in care do not have a social worker who is the link between them and their family on both sides, that is, their foster family and their birth family. They do not have that person who should be with them through the process, who knew them before they came into care, works with them while they are in care, knows the details of their life and is in possession of the big file in Tusla that has everything about them in it. Those people do not exist. They are what foster carers used to call "lifers" - people who went into social work and, 20 years later, were still knocking on Mrs. Foster Carer's door. They knew the people they worked with for all that time. That level of knowledge is not there because people are moving around the system and those types of workers do not exist any more. People just do not stay in the jobs long enough to build that type of relationship with the children, foster carers and birth families.

Getting enough social workers into the system is key because it makes it less easy for people to move job when the going gets tough. If the staffing is sufficient, people will actually stay for longer than a year or two and get to know the children and their lives. I do not know what the answer to that shortage is, but I know it is an absolute crisis for the children, their birth families and foster families that there just are not enough people. Social work is the profession that took foster care from what it was and developed it into what we know it as now. Social workers assessed, reviewed and supported the foster carers and managed everything else to do with the process. We are the profession that knows foster care better than any other. It is crucial we get enough people into the system. I do not know the answer as to how we achieve that but I know it is crucial we do.