Mr. Bernard Gloster:

On the question on the foster care committee and consistency, I will ask Ms Murphy to respond in a moment.

On the issue of complexity and the context, as referred to by the Deputy and me earlier, it is important to deal with the matter in a fairly stark way. I will do so if I can. When children enter care in an unplanned or emergency way, through a Garda section 12 arrangement or the out-of-hours team at night, we have a number of standard placements available to them. We have about 25 foster care families and about 16 residential care beds. These comprise our standard emergency provision. Unfortunately, we now have the context of what we call the special emergency arrangement. Today we have 40 young people in this category. There were 35 last May and the number rose to 60 during the summer. There were 44 last week. Today we have 40 young people whom we are trying to safely connect to placements from one day to the next. They are in care placement arrangements, be it in a holiday home, hotel or any other type of arrangement we can come up with, with two or three staff, depending on their needs. We should leave aside the issue of the cost because I believe that is the last consideration.

On the research, we drilled very carefully into what in the lives of the young people has meant nobody else could safely care for them. Residential care staff could not cope and those involved in foster care placements could not cope. The factors in the young people’s lives were drugs, crime, suicidal ideation, mental health issues, emotional issues, behavioural issues, trauma, domestic violence and multiple placement breakdowns. Ten had six of these factors in their lives at the time of the special arrangement. One had eight, and one had all nine. This reflects the immense challenge in the context I talk about.

I did an interview with The Irish Timestwo weeks ago. I am not a social worker, as members know. In the interview, I was asked what the answer was. I have to be very clear that I do not know what it is. I know what my professional staff tell me is necessary to try to keep the youth safe today and ground them in such a way that we can hopefully reconnect them to a placement. I have no doubt that coming into care late would be a feature somewhere.

The other shocking thing we saw was that 77% of the young people were volunteered into care as teens, usually well above 14 or 15 years of age. Some 76% of them went into care during the Covid pandemic. The Deputy referred to the circumstances right at the height of lockdown and other limitations in life. With probably stretched families who were just about holding it together, things fractured and broke. The factors are quite significant. It is important that we do not stereotype the young people or demonise them in any way. The factors in their lives were factors that were imposed on them; they are not factors of their own imposition.

Let me refer to the supports for these types of people this year. Let us say there is a consistent number requiring care of 40 to 45, with some going out of the system and some new ones coming in. There were about 900 admissions to care last year. While the number of cases in question might be small, it is very significant in the sense of how all State agencies are challenged to respond. My concern with regard to the special arrangements is that we have spent €22 million so far this year. When I part with the money, my question concerns the outcome for those concerned and the value of the intervention. Right now, it is just about keeping the young people safe. When the Deputy asks me about the context from which the kids are coming, that is it. I realise it sounds brutally raw to say it and that the Deputy will understand the spirit in which I am saying it. We have to talk about what life means for some young people today beyond the scope of our traditional child-protection understanding.

Ms Murphy will discuss foster care committees.