James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the officials before the Committee of Public Accounts. I want to open with expenditure for foster care in Ireland. In this current budget, we saw a failure from the Department's side to negotiate an additional allocation of funding. I want to get an overall profile of how much has been spent on the foster care allowance and the individual breakdown, essentially just to develop an understanding of why that was not addressed in this budget. I will open with that question.