Ms Catherine Bond:

If one studies the journey of the Irish State and institutional care, one sees the learnings from institutional care and then there were small residential care homes, and there were learnings from that. I suppose everybody knows that the optimum for a child is to grow up in a family and to have regular normal family life. That is what foster care is offering to all 6,000 children who are growing up today in foster care. The Irish Foster Care Association has a national annual conference every autumn and the foster carers and all the children come to that conference. It is the best sight in the world to see all of children, the birth children, the foster carers, and the families all together and everybody having a really good time. One sees the children in foster care who are doing so well, and even the children who are not doing so well, but all are cared for and loved. It would do anyone's heart good to see it.