Sharon Keogan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Ms Ward for joining us today. On online age verification, there is a Bill before the Dáil and Seanad at this moment, the Protection of Children (Online Age Verification) Bill, which was brought in last July by a number of us Independent Senators. That legislation is there and I hope it will see the light of day. It puts the obligation on the Internet providers and app store services to ensure that persons under the age of 18 are not able to access pornographic material online.

I am going to go back to the care sector, the child protection system and Tusla. I am going to talk specifically about children in residential care. There are approximately 800 children between the Children's Rights Alliance's residential and other placements. Many of them, perhaps as many as 60% or 70%, are without education. It is in their care plan that they must go to school or attend an educational setting. It is mostly post-primary students who go into residential settings. They are mostly over the ages of 11, 12 or 13. There is no school policy to ensure that those children go to school or another educational setting. That worries me. What advocacy is the Children's Rights Alliance doing for that?

On aftercare, I do not know where the role of the Children's Rights Alliance stops. For me, when children are in the care of the State, they should be in that care until the age of 23. That is the remit. We are their guardians. The guardian ad litem leaves a child when he or she turns 18. That must stop and perhaps the Children's Rights Alliance could advocate for that. Sometimes as a foster parent, you do not have any say. The aftercare worker has minimal say. The guardian ad litem holds massive sway. If the Children's Rights Alliance could try to increase that to the age of 23, I would appreciate it. That is an important piece of work.

Social workers go into residential placements. Very often, new cases come in and we can see that referrals are coming in this month. When new cases come in, those children must be assessed. The children who are put into residential placements can be there for years, sometimes until they age out. The role of national placement teams in getting them back into a family setting and working quicker is important for those children. A child should go into a residential placement for a maximum of one year. We must try to place children into family settings.

I do not know if there are many mother and baby units around the country, within Tusla or wherever else. How many of those still exist? What advocacy is the Children's Rights Alliance doing for the children in those units and their mothers?

There are children in the care of the State and might be receiving residential care out of the State. I do not now what the numbers are now, but what is the Children's Rights Alliance's role in respect of those children?

Inspections of residential service providers are very often announced. In fact, I would say that 99% of inspections are announced. It would be interesting to see what those reports would look like if they were not announced. Those are the couple of matters I wanted to raise.