Ms Kate Duggan:

We have more than 500 stakeholders, including colleagues in EPIC, the Irish Aftercare Network and all of the advocacy agencies. The need for support came across very strongly in the forum. This is not just financial support from Tusla but other supports such as access to therapeutic services and better training. It is about better communication. Foster carers need more robust communication. They need to feel they are partners in the approach to care planning for the children in their care. It comes back to the need for consistency in how they access services and the types of services and supports they can get. In the coming years we are on course to implement more than 29 recommendations of the plan. They are very much about our vision of ensuring that 90% of children remain in foster care. More than this, it is looking at new models. We have looked at models in Wales, Scotland, Canada and Australia with regard to how we support foster care places, in particular those where foster carers are finding it difficult to continue to support and where young people in foster care are finding it difficult to remain in placements. We are looking at consistency in service provision in all of our business supports to make it much easier for foster carers to receive a consistent support service. It is an ambitious plan but we are committed to implementing all of these recommendations. These recommendations will go a long way to dealing with the issues that have been raised.