Ms Aoife Bair?ad:

I work with foster carers who are with Tusla and ones with private agencies. For those who have moved to private agencies, their primary reason is a perception of the support that is offered. That is things like access to 24-7 on call, access to psychological services, access to additional training and identifying their support needs. I am therefore cautious about a move away from that. All foster carers should have that expectation. It is more what Tusla in that regard needs to come up to. Again, that is a complex issue and requires lots of resources outside Tusla alone, but it is important to note.

On residential and what is needed, I am struggling with the term "crisis" because it has been coming for a long time. It was identified multiple times by multiple professionals that children's needs were becoming more complex and what they needed was going to be more wraparound services and residential services that had an understanding of that and resources available to do that. As a crisis response, Tusla has had to move to private agencies but Tusla needs to have those services available again in-house and in all of its residentials. Those children are not going away and new children are coming. We know with poverty and things like the cost-of-living crisis there will be an increase in children coming into care. We know from our experience in direct provision that, when children come from places of war, more children come into care and need more services.

That crisis, if one wants to call it that, is not going away. It needs to be addressed, but it is a long-term piece that needs to be addressed through many years rather than being something that can be fixed overnight. Moving away from those private services means Tusla will have to take up the banner in terms of what is being offered, which is complex therapeutic supports - when they are available - for those children.