Mr. Jim Gibson:

The agency is on record as welcoming independent and robust scrutiny of our services. We welcome that because it reaffirms our assessment of some of the situations. Some of the main themes that have come through the HIQA reports include relative assessments not being completed within a timeframe that was set ten years ago by way of regulation, Garda vetting not being on file, the reviews of foster carers after a period of three years and the management of abuse allegations. I will categorically state that we take on board that commentary and have responded to it. We have ready for sign-off a new assessment framework for relatives because there is a distinct difference between going around the corner to stay with an aunt or uncle with whom one has a good relationship and attachment as opposed to a stranger in general foster care. Garda vetting has been an issue. We have let ourselves down, in that we had the Garda vetting but we did not have it on the file in the area. With e-vetting now in place, we are confident that we have set up a procedure with the Garda vetting bureau in Thurles to process applications more quickly.

Regarding the management of allegations of abuse, the main finding by HIQA was that there were inconsistent practices. It did not necessarily say that we never dealt with those complex issues. I issued an interim protocol that brought consistency to the area and my colleague on policy and strategy is working on a more comprehensive policy document.

We respond to the findings and themes that emerge from HIQA reports. We do not nonchalantly ignore them. We have identified reviews that need to take place, mitigated against risks and put a plan in place to undertake the reviews. As chief operations officer, I am involved with service directors and area managers on ensuring fitness for purpose. Under one of the initiatives deployed in areas where HIQA identified difficulties, we set up a governance performance and oversight group to ensure that the action plan that we agreed with HIQA was thoroughly and exclusively dealt with in that area. There are fine examples within our agency of serious and benchmarked improvement.

I welcome Deputy Rabbitte's query about providing an opportunity to showcase some of the good stuff that we do and to remind the committee that, when we were established, we set ourselves the target that every child in care would have an allocated social worker. We have hovered around the 90% to 95% figure of children in care having social workers. As the chief operations officer, that is an exceptionally good standard to achieve internationally. The other 5% figure relates to the recruitment and retention issues that we have been experiencing.

We have numerous young people in foster care who are at university, abroad, on sports scholarships and so on. They comprise the silent majority whom we never get the opportunity to showcase. I receive correspondence from children in care thanking me. When one young person who left care in a city in this country got married to his girlfriend, his foster carer asked him whether he would like to buy a house. She could buy a house for that young chap because she had kept the maintenance payments for 15 years. These are the positives.

I asked the area managers to give me a portfolio of all of the good occurrences in foster care because the level of scrutiny of past events is impacting on our capacity as an agency to recruit and retain foster carers. I told Ms Catherine Bond of the Irish Foster Care Association when we met to discuss recruitment that, given all of the bad publicity and loose comments about foster care, it might be about marketing foster care rather than recruitment. We are forgetting about the silent majority of children who are doing exceptionally well in families and communities, attending school and having a good outcome. I welcome the opportunity for us to showcase to the committee the good, positive elements of foster care.