Erin McGreehan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Our guests are all very welcome to our meeting. I look at our eight guests and think they have an enormous responsibility in respect of thousands of children and their futures. The success or otherwise of their jobs depends on them. They are in an incredible position. Many people are falling between stools. As Senator O'Loughlin said, we only ever hear of the bad and hard stories. Many of us have personal experience or know people who have had wonderful experiences, who have got proper help and thrived and succeeded after proper intervention. When we then hear the bad stories and hear about the waiting lists, it is even more frustrating because we know we have good people who know what they are doing but we cannot get children access to them. That is frustrating.

Mr. Smyth of Tusla mentioned that 5,500 children are in the care of the State. How many of them are in specialist care? How many, because of the lack of access to care and other interventions, including medical care, therapy and specialist interventions, have ended up in the State's care? I met representatives of Tusla in my area recently to discuss how things were going for them and the challenges they are facing and they mentioned that this is a significant challenge for them. They told me they are stuck and things get so bad for families that there is nowhere else to turn other than to Tusla, which has a statutory obligation to find accommodation, regardless of whether it is suitable. Even if it is imperfect, that accommodation has to be provided. It costs an enormous amount of money because of the domino effect on what comes thereafter. When do our guests, as stakeholders, get together and sit down to discuss these challenges? How often do they meet to discuss challenges within Tusla and access to care? I note Tusla has spent €5 million to access private care. It is a State body but is accessing private care. That does not make sense to me. I am thinking of the staff who could have been employed and the efficiencies that could have been built into Tusla's systems if that budget were to be used somewhere else. How often do our guests meet to discuss challenges?

Let us consider a situation where a case worker in Tusla has a family of concern. That social worker sits with the family, including the children and the mother, concludes the family is in crisis and asks why. If the crisis is that there is a child with mental health difficulties, who is screaming out for services or therapies, is there space for that child to be prioritised to stop Tusla having to take that child into care? Do those conversations happen? In that position, do our guests identify that a certain child is very vulnerable and understand that if there is no immediate intervention, it is more than likely, based on their experience, he or she will have to be taken into State care? How do those mechanisms work at a local and regional level?

We know that foster families are important. They are a linchpin. If we did not have foster families, Tusla would be in serious trouble. What extra supports are available for foster families if they need support, for example for a child with disabilities? They may need help to adapt a home to provide for a sensory room, or extra help in the family home to be able to support that child. If we provided that support, the child would not need the HSE as much. What wraparound supports are available? I know a family with a need for a sensory room at home. The little girl in question is wonderful but needs a sensory room to be able to thrive. She is receiving some therapies but the provision of such supports would be better and would balance things out. What wraparound supports can Tusla and the HSE provide? Can they, for example, provide the likes of sensory rooms?