Mr. Gerard Brophy:

We see a very strong fall-off between those who express an interest in fostering and those who eventually accept it. I think there are a whole lot of reasons for that. By and large, families are really generous, both parents and children, in being open to accepting another child, but when they get to thinking about how they can actually make that happen practically speaking, a lot of people's work schedules do not work for it or they may have physical difficulties in terms of the housing. We know we are in a housing crisis. It prevents younger members of that family who may be getting married and moving out and who would normally speak and be a support for fostering from setting up their own homes. There is not the support that would normally be there. The drop-off is probably more than we would normally see from the communities generally across Ireland but not that significantly more. Given the housing crisis in the Travelling community, I think this would be reflected in that. We certainly want the rate to be higher. Every area would have a list of fostering families and would have at least one or two fostering families who are from the Travelling community in that - or maybe more - over a long period and would foster lots of children from the general community as well.