Ms Aine McGuirk:

I would be happy to respond, from my perspective, on the level of recruitment of foster carers. I am sure the IFCA will also have something to say. What we know about foster carers is that most people who come to fostering are either friends or relations of somebody who fostered or have somehow come by an experience of fostering, thought it was lovely and great and that they could do it. They go in with their eyes open because they know what fostering is about.

One of the issues in Tusla, where I quite recently worked in fostering for four years, the bank of social workers on a fostering team is suddenly told by their manager that Tusla needs to have a fosterering recruitment campaign and tells the lads and lassies to go off to recruit foster carers. The social workers have to drop everything they are doing. They are going around with leaflets into places such as GAA clubs. They are putting up posters in shops and asking grace and favour. That is no way to use Tusla's social workers. However, it is the old way. The old way used to be to get people up to the pulpit to talk in the churches, because that is where people gathered, but there are much newer ways of doing things nowadays. It is wrong to ask the already-very-stretched social work personnel to do this campaign. Something more needs to be done to recruit people.

Think of what we know. We know that people who are linked to fostering will come forward. How does one get to those people? We know that people in caring professions are more likely to come forward, as foster carers, than people in other professions who would not have that sort of nature. That is the wrong word, but the Deputy knows what I mean. It is amazing how many children of foster carers become social care workers or nurses.