Patrick Costello (Dublin South Central, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I have three questions and one general point. The Minister mentioned Tusla's relationship with parents and the ongoing issues there, which is a valid point. That also raises the issue of the independent advocacy for the parents of children in care. That is beyond the scope of this discussion so we can leave that for the minute. I want to underline that point but I do not expect the Minister to answer on it.

I agree with the points Deputy Cronin was making. If that feedback is being requested from Tusla, I ask that the following matter be put to it as well and that the answer is shared with the committee. It would be important for us to understand this matter and for Tusla to examine and understand it. When recruiting foster carers there are expressions of interest and the number of expressions of interest drops down a little to actual applications. The number of people who move the application right until the end will be smaller and then you get to the foster care committee. There are various steps and at every step there is a filtering down. Has Tusla ever looked at why people drop off as a way to improve recruitment? Are there structural issues within Tusla? Are its demands so great that everybody is stumbling at the same block? Are these reflections of wider societal pressures that Tusla cannot necessarily fix? That is the sort of information that would be useful to the committee and that would be useful nationally. If that kind of feedback is being requested of Tusla maybe it would answer those questions as well and send on the answers to the committee. That would be helpful.

The best recruiter for a foster carer is often another foster carer. This is why getting into communities where there might not have been a foster carer before is powerful and could open up further recruitment. I know that in the past the Minister had voiced a commitment to looking at recruiting for minorities, migrants and members of the Travelling community. I ask the Minister for an update on how that is going because that is important for meeting the cultural needs of children in care, and also for opening up routes to further recruitment.

I do not expect a response from the Minister on the following point either but it is something important that Tusla needs to look at in its strategic planning. When we were getting witness testimony from the foster care groups we heard from Aoife Bairéad, a social worker who is involved in the Irish Association of Social Workers and who is an independent expert. She talked about the importance of the first placement. Quite often when a young person comes into care it is at a point of emergency and it can be a traumatic and chaotic thing. They can go to one placement for one night, or maybe one week, and then they are on to another and another until that permanent arrangement becomes available. Quite often that is a matter of recruitment because the carers just are not there. At the same time, Tusla uses the number of carers as a marker of trauma and stability. The more stable a placement is and the fewer moves a child has, the better it is for them. The most ideal situation we would have is that the child’s first placement would be their permanent and best placement. To get us to a position where we can do that is going to take a huge amount of work but that needs to be a strategic aim of Tusla, and it is important we say that on the record because that will make life better for all children in care and reduce the trauma and harm they experience. We can talk about trauma-informed practice and all of this but we need to set that as our gold standard because that is the gold standard of foster care.

I wanted to underline those points about relationships with parents; recruitment among new communities, including Travellers and minorities; and the drop-off.