Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 28 March 2023

Joint Committee On Children, Equality, Disability, Integration And Youth

Foster Care Issues: Discussion

Photo of Roderic O'GormanRoderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Sherlock. I was very clear around the budget in particular when I met with both organisations individually but also when I spoke at the Irish Foster Care Association, IFCA, conference, which was a large gathering of foster parents. I recognised that there was real disappointment that there was not an increase to the weekly rate and that rests with me, as Minister. I was not able to secure that. It was part of our budget negotiations. As members know, in one particular area in the budget my Department did very well and was able to secure significant funds in terms of sheer scale and investment in childcare, but we were not able to secure something here. I acknowledge that is on me. It was important to provide a concrete benefit for foster carers in the context of this budget, which is why we brought forward the proposal of the once-off payment. I recognise it is just a once-off payment but it is provided at a time when people in other sectors of society were receiving once-off payments as well, as a recognition, not as a cure to the extra financial pressure but as a recognition. As I said, the issue of the weekly rate is a key priority for me going into budget 2024. I cannot make any greater commitment than that but that is what I said to the organisations, one on one, and that is what I said at the IFCA conference at which I spoke. To touch on part of the Deputy’s second point, I am conscious that our rate of fostering has fallen slightly. It was 91 when I started this role and is now 89. That is not the direction we want to go. We have to recognise how much higher it is than that of our nearest neighbour but it is not going in the right direction and we need to arrest that and bring it up.

It is important that we look at a range of measures to support foster parents not just the weekly rate. There is the issue of the allowance for mileage as well. Our focus on that comes from it being raised with me by IFCA and by Movement for Change. We just got the report last week, on 22 March 2023, so I do not have the key details the Deputy is looking for but they will come out. They will have to come out in order for this to mean something to foster carers. We have not yet had enough of a chance to look at the Tusla report. It was important, I thought, to get Tusla to give me its assessment of the system at the moment and what changes we can make to it for the benefit of foster carers.

In regard to recruitment, we have seen that 2% drop over the past three years. Tusla’s national fosterer campaign continues to operate. That operates on a yearly basis. However, in the foster care plan that Tusla published late last year, a document I welcome because that is Tusla setting out the key issues it will undertake in order to support fostering from a macro level of a fostering need for the organisation. Considering that fostering is so important and the numbers of children in foster care, I was actually surprised that there was not an actual lead individual within the organisation. That is being addressed now. That is important. Coming down the line, we have six peer support foster carers to be recruited across the organisation. Recognising that many children in foster care may have additional needs, one of the points that is set out in the foster care plan is the recruitment of regional therapeutic managers in each of the Tusla regions. It is currently looking at recruitment of speech and language therapists and occupational therapists for a pilot programme. That would allow foster carers access to these therapists on a pilot basis, recognising the particular prevalence of some additional needs among the cohort of children who are in foster care. Some of those measures are on the financial side, some are on the organisational side and some are more on the services side and specific, tangible service support to foster carers and their families.

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