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

The committee can continue to ask me about that in our engagements. On the recruitment of minority foster carers, there is some good news. The Traveller programme, which was kicking off when I came into this role, was funded through the Dormant Accounts Fund and that is being mainstreamed. It has proven to be successful in getting parents in the Travelling community to act as foster carers so that is positive. We have to recognise that Travellers are over-represented within the care system so to be cared for by parents within your community is something positive. As the Deputy knows, we brought in another scheme with specific training for parents who are fostering for young people who are unaccompanied minors, and some of those parents would be from minority communities. It is not a requirement of it; there are non-minority parents fostering in that as well but that was also supported and it was particularly important in allowing us to meet our commitment to bring 28 children over from Lesbos who were unaccompanied in a refugee camp there. Those were the key issues that the Deputy had asked me to address.