Dr. Valerie O'Brien:

First, regarding the foster care working party, looking back on the history of this, and I have been involved in foster care for a long time, there was the setting up in 1998 of a working party which reported in 2001. While three years may seem like a long time, that in fact led to foster care being cemented as the backbone of our child welfare system. We therefore already have very good outcomes in this country from having such a working party. The reason we are now advocating a working party again, given the complexity and the number of stakeholders and the number of Departments involved in children and children in care, is that we do not see there are effective structures currently. There needs to be a clear ministerial mandate. In this paper envisioning a working party we have itemised the various tasks and the reporting relationships in respect of the project manager, so a lot of the work has been done for the Government.

Second, as to where the other 10% of children are, in the main the children are in residential care. Tusla, in fact, while it may appear as a-----