Ms Eva Boyle:

I thank Ms Dunnion. I will start with Senator Devine's queries. On family placements, our finding over the years is that Tusla does endeavour to go to the child's family as the first port of call to explore placement options for children in foster care. We have found, however, that there is often a delay post finding somebody. There is a preliminary process that takes place first to establish whether, on an emergency basis, a child can be placed with a relative. There is a delay, however, between that process being finalised and the relative foster carer getting final approval from the area placement committee so they are fully approved as a relative foster placement. This is an issue we have escalated throughout 2016 in Dublin south central and the midlands.

Reference was made to the difference between statutory and private foster care organisations. Every child who comes in to the care of the State is the responsibility of Tusla.

Tusla has its own fostering service in all its 17 service areas. In addition, there are six private companies which recruit foster carers and assess them. In order for the foster carers to be approved, their assessment report goes in front of a Tusla foster care committee for approval. The children who are placed in the private organisations remain the responsibility of Tusla and, according to our standards, should have a Tusla social worker to look after the child's interests, but the foster carer in the private company will have a social worker, a link worker, from the private company to look after their interests. The issue we have raised time and again in our reports is that there are agreements relating to individual children and their care but there is no overall service level agreement between Tusla and those organisations to have an ongoing formal monitoring process.

Senator Freeman raised the issue of allegations and the safety of children. That has been a significant risk we have escalated to Tusla for three of the statutory inspections. One of the issues we have identified in two of the areas has been a confused approach in that there has not been one common policy document in place for staff to use, so that the staff are very clear in terms of the process they follow. Tusla has managed that and has recently formulated an interim protocol relating to the management of allegations against foster carers, so that is progress.

We have found there have been some delays in respect of allegations by children against foster carers being investigated. There are numerous reasons for this. Some of these are the structures that are in place in individual areas relating to investigation. When we have found risk, however, we have always looked for a safety plan to ensure children are safe prior to us leaving, and post inspection we follow that up in writing to make sure allegations have been assessed and followed through on, but it is certainly an area of concern.

Deputy Jan O'Sullivan asked about more foster carers being required. It is certainly our view that foster carers need to be encouraged and feel that it is a safe place, that they will be well supported but also supervised, because that is important in terms of the child's safety but also for the foster carers.

In terms of our inspection activity for 2017, we recognise the importance of the assessment process being key to ensure the right people are coming into fostering and also that they will go through a process where they fully understand the responsibilities that are in place. If people are thoroughly assessed, the likelihood is that there will be less breakdown. We need more foster carers to be attracted into fostering because we need a pool of foster carers in order that when a child comes into the system, we know that if he or she has a disability, for example, we have a foster carer or a pool of foster carers who have the skills, experience and training to be able to meet the needs of the child. Certainly, it is an area that needs further development in terms of bringing more foster carers into the system.