Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I will focus initially on residential care and fostering. I accept that the explosion in demand in the special emergency arrangements is probably unpredictable in the sense that we have seen enormous numbers of people arriving on out shores. It is saddening to think of a child travelling without a guardian and requiring that level of service and intervention. I accept that is broadly unpredictable from Tusla's point of view as an organisation. I will ask about workforce planning or the planning the agency does to anticipate demand for its services. How predictable is that? Is there a trend whereby we have predictions in demand based on population and then changes in demand within the population that are driving an increase in services? Are we seeing an expansion of demand beyond what we would normally predict?