Dr. Niall Muldoon:

On the idea of early intervention, the Deputy listed the issues that can mean children find themselves in need of Tusla intervention or being taken into care. If you start at the very moment they are born, the public health nurse is the first line of defence, as such. We are losing those nurses. That intervention is not happening as regularly as it used to happen. They were the only professional who met a child immediately. Every single child in the population was met by a public health nurse. That is much more limited now than it was previously. We are now getting much more prioritisation of what public health nurses do and whom they go to see. Parents are asked to bring their child to a GP. We know the population has changed and parents might not necessarily trust GPs, they may not know the GP or they may not have a GP. Those children are in that disadvantaged, vulnerable area already and we are not giving State intervention at the very start to pick up on things that could be problematic but could easily be fixed as well. That early intervention is crucial. The prevention, partnership and family support programme from Tusla is crucial as well and I do not think we invest enough in that to prevent children coming out of the family.

I take the Deputy's point there may be situations where children should be out earlier. That will always be a line that has to be walked but we have to invest more in preventing the child from going into care. That should always be the last resort. Tusla is perhaps where we need to go upstream and put much more investment into where the child has been identified. Issues can be identified by a public health nurse or a GP, or by a teacher if the child is four or five years of age. There is early intervention recognition but we are missing out on providing the support that goes with it. Children then come into care at a later stage when it is much more difficult to deal with. It is much more difficult to get foster parents and residential centres. Some residential centres are private and will not take the more difficult children.

One problem nests on top of another. We can identify it and see it. Now is the time to stand up and invest in the prevention of it. There is a lot of work to be done and the Deputy has highlighted very well that we need to try to break out of that embeddedness. We can do that through early intervention so that the child is supported. Obviously, the parents need to be supported to allow the child to come back as well. We are changing the narrative for both sides and that will be a hugely important piece, if we can do it.