Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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Apologies have been received from Deputies Cairns and Ward. Deputy Cronin will substitute for Deputy Ward. Apologies have also been received from Senator McGreehan.

Today we will engage with the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Deputy O'Gorman, regarding foster care issues. The Minister is joined by his officials, Ms Lara Hynes, acting assistant secretary, and Ms Marie Kennedy, principal officer. They are very welcome to the meeting.

I will go through the regular housekeeping matters. I advise anyone who is attending online via MS Teams that the chat function should only be used to make us aware of an urgent matter and should not be used to make general comments or statements. I remind members of the constitutional requirement that they must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex in order to participate in public meetings. I will not permit a member to participate where he or she is not adhering to this constitutional requirement. Therefore, any member who attempts to participate from outside the precincts will be asked to leave the meeting. In this regard, I ask members who are participating via MS Teams to confirm they are on the grounds of the Leinster House complex before they contribute.

In advance of inviting the Minister to deliver his opening statement, I advise him of the following in respect of parliamentary privilege. Witnesses who are participating from the committee room are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.

The Minister will have five minutes for his opening statement, which will be followed by questions and answers. Before I invite him to make his opening statement, I wish to express how happy we are to have Ms Anita Gibbons, our clerk, back with us. We are all delighted to see her here. We also offer a sincere thanks to Ms Maeve Ní Liatháin, who stood in for Ms Gibbons for the past number of months. It feels like we are back to normal now.

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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I share the Cathaoirleach's welcoming of Ms Gibbons back to the committee.

I thank the Cathaoirleach and members of the committee for inviting me to discuss matters relating to foster care. I recognise and acknowledge the enormous work foster carers do in this country. They are at the core of the alternative care system in Ireland and they provide a safe and stable home for thousands of young people who may not have had the best start in life.

Since coming into this role, I have met many foster carers and their representatives and I am always struck by the quiet dedication and care with which they perform their role. We are leaders in Europe in that 89% of children in care here are provided care via foster carers, which is a very high figure compared with most European countries. That is something we should welcome and seek to protect.

I know from meeting with foster carers that some are experiencing financial pressures. This creates challenges for the care they provide to the children. It is a priority for me, therefore, to continue our efforts to improve the suite of supports foster carers can avail of. I know there was some disappointment with regard to budget 2023. Subsequent to the budget, I met the then chief executive of Tusla with whom I discussed the issue of payments for foster carers. Following this engagement, it was agreed that a single, additional once-off cost-of-living payment in respect of each child in foster care would be paid. This payment was made to foster carers in November of last year. This was to recognise the particular cost-of-living pressures that have applied over the last nine months but it was not to detract in any way from the overall goal, which I know many of the organisations in this area share, of increasing the rate of payment on a permanent basis.

I have met with a number of the organisations involved, including the Irish Foster Care Association, IFCA. I also attended and spoke at its AGM. I also met with the Movement 4 Change in Foster Care last November. In both of those meetings, the organisations set out a range of key issues and concerns they wanted to see being addressed. One of the issues that has come up is travel costs, which have been highlighted by foster carers as an increasingly significant financial outlay in respect of the care they provide to their foster children. This is particularly the case where a foster parent is fostering a child from a different county as significant travel may be involved in attending medical appointments and access visits to parents I have discussed this issue with Tusla, which agreed to provide an update to me on a proposed review of its policy in respect of travel costs for foster carers. That policy review from Tusla was submitted to my Department on 22 March. My officials and I are reviewing that and we will look to act on the recommendations stemming from that review.

Both the IFCA and the Movement 4 Change in Foster Care also raised with me the issue of access to the full State contributory pension.

I raised this with the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Humphreys, in a bilateral meeting with her. This was particularly in the context of the recommendation of the pensions commission on long-term carers. We had a good discussion on that and officials are engaging further on this aspect. I will be speaking more to the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, to determine if we can see a way which will ensure foster carers can receive greater pensions protections.

I also welcome the publication by Tusla of its strategic plan for foster care services in Ireland late last year. I am conscious that this plan, along with the strategic plan for

residential care services for children and young people, will form part of Tusla’s overall alternative care strategy across the continuum of care. I also know that the final part of the three plans Tusla is bringing forward, that in respect of aftercare, is due for completion shortly.

Looking at the strategic plan for foster care, it is important to note Tusla is going to hire a national lead for fostering. This will elevate the position and significance of fostering within the national framework of Tusla and this is entirely appropriate considering the number of children who are in foster care and our shared goal of ensuring we can continue to grow the number of people involved. This will reflect the importance of foster care in the alternative care continuum and will facilitate a more national and strategic focus on foster care, based on the implementation of the recommendations of the plan.

Regarding private family arrangements, I acknowledge the letter I received from the committee in September last year on this topic, to which I subsequently replied. In that correspondence, the committee noted that the Office of the Ombudsman for Children published a report in August of last year that recommended the development of a policy on the rights of children in informal kinship care. The committee will be aware that a similar recommendation emanated from the UNCRC’s concluding observations in February of this year.

My Department is currently undertaking a scoping exercise to identify the key issues and information required to inform a policy specifically to address the needs of children and families in private care arrangements in Ireland. This work will involve close collaboration with Tusla and other State bodies and stakeholders, including Kinship Care Ireland, and this will be informed by the views and experiences of children in private care arrangements. This policy will seek to ensure that the rights of children in private care arrangements are upheld and appropriate supports are provided.

I again thank the committee for this opportunity to discuss these important issues, and I look forward to our engagement.

Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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I will quickly run through the speaking rota based on who is present in the room and online. Deputy Creed will be first, followed by Senators O'Sullivan and Seery Kearney and then Deputies Sherlock and Cronin. Deputy Cronin is substituting for Deputy Ward. I call Deputy Creed, if he has any questions for the Minister.

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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I am sorry, I had not offered at this stage.

Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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I call Senator O'Sullivan.

Ned O'Sullivan (Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Cathaoirleach. I expected to be further down the rota and I was doing a small bit of self-briefing, but I will take my chance when I get it. I welcome the Minister and thank him for the work he and his Department are doing. He is a very busy Minister, with a huge brief. I do not say this often, but he deserves great respect for the amount of work he is taking on and the quality of the work he is doing. This is universally acknowledged now.

We had the representatives of the foster carers with us some weeks ago. I was impressed by their presentations. They outlined their problems, with which the Minister is more than familiar. How optimistic is he that he can answer the concerns raised with him? How optimistic would he be that rights to proper remuneration and pensions would be in place in future? Is the Minister confident Tusla will be able to put forward a programme that he will be able to support to the benefit of carers and children alike?

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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I thank the Senator for his question and his earlier comments. I appreciate them, as will officials across my Department. Some of the measures I have set out are directly within the remit of my Department and some within those of other Departments. Going into budget 2024 negotiations, I have identified a key priority as being to increase the weekly foster care allowance. The Senator knows this is subject to the negotiations, but that is a key priority for me.

Ned O'Sullivan (Fianna Fail)
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Good.

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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By providing the once-off payments, I wanted there to be a recognition in this regard, not just someone saying it but a tangible recognition of at least one additional payment. As the Senator will be aware, we made once-off payments in several social welfare schemes as part of the budgetary package. That was something I was able to secure in working closely with Tusla. Similarly, changes to the travel costs and mileage are primarily within the gift of Tusla, but also influenced my Department as well. I asked Tusla to provide a review and it did so just last week. I did not have a chance to go through it in detail yet, but I will because this was an issue that was raised with almost as much significance as anything else by the representatives of some of the organisations. It is not the unfairness in this regard, but depending on the circumstances of children with a foster parent, they may or may not be doing a significant amount of travel. There is, then, an inconsistency in the outcomes of this process now. I think this is something we can address.

I had a good meeting with the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, regarding the discussion on the State pension. She has a strong desire in respect of recognising the benefits of care in this context and providing a mechanism to do so. The pension commission also wants to achieve this too. The reference was to carers generally, but I would love to see foster carers in there in black and white. This is what I am looking to achieve and it will be on this basis that I will be undertaking further engagement with the Minister, Deputy Humphreys.

Ned O'Sullivan (Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister.

Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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I call Deputy Sherlock.

Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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I join in welcoming Ms Gibbons. We are delighted to have her back. I suppose the Minister will anticipate some of the questions I might put forward. The once-off payment per child, provided last year as a measure to address the cost of living, was divided between those over a certain age cohort of those aged over and under 12. It was €325 for a child aged under 12 and €352 for a child aged over 12. The Irish Examinercarried an article in response to that on Saturday, 8 October 2021, by Noel Baker. When he spoke to a foster carer following budget 2022, that person described those receiving the payment as a bit of "a soft touch". This person, who spoke anonymously, also said: "We're like the guards - we can't go on strike". There is something very telling in that statement.

I contend that this is a group of people who are characteristically, in terms of what it is that they do, inherently good. In many cases, many foster carers would have, and I do not want to use the word "sacrificed", maybe let go of other opportunities out of commitment to the work they do as foster parents. It is on this basis that I wish to interrogate further the issues of pension rights and budget 2024. I feel that perhaps not enough was done to argue in this regard. None of this is a personal criticism, let me be very clear about this, but I wonder could more have been done to get that weekly allowance increased when the Minister and his colleagues were negotiating with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform in respect of doing more than just having a once-off payment for the cost-of-living allowance. Could more have been done in budget 2022 to facilitate or bake in an increase per child?

If the answer to that is that you "did all you could do" which I anticipate might be the response, can this committee receive some assurances that the outlook for foster carers in 2024 will be different and much better? That might give the sector some grounds for hope in regard to the remuneration or allowance received. That is the first point.

On the issue of travelling costs and mileage, and I know what the Minister says in regard to that being a significant issue for families, can we see some outworking of that in terms of what it means in practical terms, such as what mileage rate the Minister anticipates he will allocate to foster carers? Has some discussion taken place around that in brass tacks, pounds, shillings and pence, or euro?

Finally, on the issue of recruitment, it seems to me that there are many financial barriers now. The financial commitment or the lack of a proper remuneration or stipend must have, by the Minister’s calculations or those of his officials, a dampening effect on the recruitment of potentially very good foster parents into the sector.

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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I thank Deputy Sherlock. I was very clear around the budget in particular when I met with both organisations individually but also when I spoke at the Irish Foster Care Association, IFCA, conference, which was a large gathering of foster parents. I recognised that there was real disappointment that there was not an increase to the weekly rate and that rests with me, as Minister. I was not able to secure that. It was part of our budget negotiations. As members know, in one particular area in the budget my Department did very well and was able to secure significant funds in terms of sheer scale and investment in childcare, but we were not able to secure something here. I acknowledge that is on me. It was important to provide a concrete benefit for foster carers in the context of this budget, which is why we brought forward the proposal of the once-off payment. I recognise it is just a once-off payment but it is provided at a time when people in other sectors of society were receiving once-off payments as well, as a recognition, not as a cure to the extra financial pressure but as a recognition. As I said, the issue of the weekly rate is a key priority for me going into budget 2024. I cannot make any greater commitment than that but that is what I said to the organisations, one on one, and that is what I said at the IFCA conference at which I spoke. To touch on part of the Deputy’s second point, I am conscious that our rate of fostering has fallen slightly. It was 91 when I started this role and is now 89. That is not the direction we want to go. We have to recognise how much higher it is than that of our nearest neighbour but it is not going in the right direction and we need to arrest that and bring it up.

It is important that we look at a range of measures to support foster parents not just the weekly rate. There is the issue of the allowance for mileage as well. Our focus on that comes from it being raised with me by IFCA and by Movement for Change. We just got the report last week, on 22 March 2023, so I do not have the key details the Deputy is looking for but they will come out. They will have to come out in order for this to mean something to foster carers. We have not yet had enough of a chance to look at the Tusla report. It was important, I thought, to get Tusla to give me its assessment of the system at the moment and what changes we can make to it for the benefit of foster carers.

In regard to recruitment, we have seen that 2% drop over the past three years. Tusla’s national fosterer campaign continues to operate. That operates on a yearly basis. However, in the foster care plan that Tusla published late last year, a document I welcome because that is Tusla setting out the key issues it will undertake in order to support fostering from a macro level of a fostering need for the organisation. Considering that fostering is so important and the numbers of children in foster care, I was actually surprised that there was not an actual lead individual within the organisation. That is being addressed now. That is important. Coming down the line, we have six peer support foster carers to be recruited across the organisation. Recognising that many children in foster care may have additional needs, one of the points that is set out in the foster care plan is the recruitment of regional therapeutic managers in each of the Tusla regions. It is currently looking at recruitment of speech and language therapists and occupational therapists for a pilot programme. That would allow foster carers access to these therapists on a pilot basis, recognising the particular prevalence of some additional needs among the cohort of children who are in foster care. Some of those measures are on the financial side, some are on the organisational side and some are more on the services side and specific, tangible service support to foster carers and their families.

Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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The Minister indirectly refers to the strategic plan on foster care by Tusla. I welcome the fact a lead is to be appointed, if the person has not already been appointed. I also note that Tusla, the Child and Family Agency, is now setting up regional structures so that public representatives such as ourselves, instead of going directly to the CEO which we have done heretofore, can now engage with regional managers and the structures in place such as those within the HSE and CHOs. That is to be welcomed.

We are seeing more and more of the issue of foster care and the challenges faced by foster parents in presentations to our constituency offices. That is why I am exercised about this issue. I am pushing back a little on the travel allowances precisely for the reasons the Minister has just spoken about in regard to families that have additional needs and where there is the necessity to travel further for access to those services. In a county the size of Cork, a person could travel quite a distance to get access to services, as well as outside of the county. Therefore I ask the Minister to ensure that the allowances are such that they are not meagre or miserly and that they are linked or benchmarked against a standard mileage allowance such as the standard business rate or even the Civil Service rate. I ask the Minister to come back to us with more detail on what he is thinking about with regard to setting such a rate. That would certainly provide a good deal of confidence for people within the sector. It might act as - I will not say a financial incentive for people to become involved - a deciding factor if prospective foster carers knew that there is an allowance that would not see them out of pocket. That might make it more attractive for them.

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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As far as I know the rates are Civil Service rates but there is a high threshold for allowing a person actually to claim. That is why a person can do quite a lot of travelling and not actually be able to claim anything. It is abotu looking at where that is and recognising regional variations and so forth. As I said, I am sorry I cannot get into it in more detail today but we just received it and I want to give it the attention it deserves. I am happy to respond to the committee in writing when we have a proposal on it if that is alright. I know it is an issue of concern to many of the members here.

Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Minister and call Deputy Murnane O'Connor.

Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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I want to agree with the previous speaker. Can the Minister discuss the report carried out by the Empowering People in Care, EPIC? The participants are seeking to ensure that the recommendations in this report influence and become the focus for policy.

The report found that most of the participants were able to identify people who made a tangible difference in their care experience, whether through the provision of practical, health, legal or emotional supports. This is important. One young person described having been given a second chance at life through being in care. That demonstrates how life-changing care can be for children and young people. It is important that we place the right value on having positive people in the care sector.

I wish to focus on those in care who have a disability, particularly as it has now been moved to within the remit of the Minister’s Department. Some of the participants in the report referred to a lack of recognition among care professionals of the distinctive nature of certain disabilities. Difficulties in securing appropriate accommodation and accessibility issues in foster homes, residential care and social housing also featured prominently in the report. Participants shared their experience of struggling to identify and access services and encountering slow responses, delays, cancellations, rejections or accessibility issues. They also referred to the let-downs in the system. That was the big issue. I ask the Minister to explain that. How can we do what is needed going forward?

All Deputies have met foster carers in their constituencies who have come to us with their worries and concerns. In 2001, the working group on foster care recommended that the fostering allowance be increased in line with social welfare payments annually, which it usually was. However, there has been no increase since 2009. A report on travel allowance is being compiled, as the Minister stated. The timescale on this is crucial. The mileage rate needs to be considered. Foster carers provide an invaluable contribution to the State because they want to bring positive change into the life of a child in need, yet this contribution is ignored by various Departments and agencies. The foster carers I met with felt they were being ignored by the State. They told me that although foster carers receive a payment for fostering children, they receive no PRSI credits and are not eligible to receive a pension. Some of these foster parents are doing this on a full-time basis but are completely ineligible to receive a State pension. Does the Minister support foster carers having access to the contributory State pension?

The Minister is aware that there are issues relating to the alternative care system. We discussed them at a previous meeting. One of those issues is the lack of foster families. Is it a struggle to find such families? Is that down to a lack of State supports? The Minister stated that the number of foster carers has reduced. I have spoken to foster care families. They believe the system is not fit for purpose and cannot keep going the way it is. EPIC referred to delays, cancellation, rejection and so on. There are significant concerns for families. I know many foster care families. A family member of mine is a foster carer. I see the commitment and dedication and love for the children. All Deputies have been meeting many foster carers in recent months. I ask that more be done. I know it is a priority for the Minister and that he will do his best but there are concerns going forward that foster carers will be lost, not because they do not want to do it but because they need support and help. The delays for the children and everything else needs to be addressed. I ask the Minister to consider those issues. I thank him for his time.

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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My Department is currently considering the EPIC publication, looking in particular at children with a disability in the care system. It was a valuable contribution, as the contributions from EPIC usually are. We recognise the importance of making additional provision for children with a disability who are in the care system, particularly those in the fostering system. I spoke earlier to Deputy Sherlock about the fact that Tusla is now appointing regional therapeutic managers for each of the Tusla regions and seeking to recruit speech and language therapists and occupational therapists for pilot sites. That is aimed at providing more targeted support for children in foster care and their families in terms of access to some of these important services, while recognising that children in the care system may have a greater propensity to need the support of these carers. That is an important step forward. As the Deputy is aware, we have the suite of three plans for residential care and foster care and the one for alternative care that will be coming forward from Tusla. Those plans will work together. There is a thread running through them in terms of the additional needs of children with a disability in the care system.

I hear what the Deputy is saying regarding what she and, I am sure, many other Deputies and Senators have heard from foster carers regarding concerns, particularly in respect of the pension. The current system involves 20 years credits for caring as part of the contributory pension but we know many foster carers have been caring for longer than that. I specifically raised that with the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, to try to flesh out that line in the recommendations of the Commission on Pensions relating to greater pension protection for carers. Engagement is ongoing between officials in my Department and those in the Department of Social Protection to see if we can provide for greater supports. There is a need for tangible recognition of the significant work and sacrifice. People make a decision not to undertake a career in order to be a foster parent and the State needs to do more to recognise that more in the longer term and not just in the context of the weekly payment.

Patrick Costello (Dublin South Central, Green Party)
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I thank the Minister for his opening statement. I will start with what he just said about recognition. That is ultimately what foster carers want. He said in his statement that they are the backbone of alternative care. They are the backbone of child protection services. Without them, we would be lost. Ultimately, they want recognition for the work they do. This takes many forms, such as the pension issues the Minister is addressing and the payment issues to which he referred. In addition, they rightly believe they need adequate support to do this important job. I have discussed the internal therapeutic supports from Tusla on many occasions with the Minister. The regional hubs to which he referred are a positive step. The committee has discussed unmet needs in respect of disabilities and assessments of need. Bernard Gloster, when he appeared before the committee, spoke about how those unmet needs were contributing to greater complexity in cases and children coming into care. These things do not necessarily exist in a vacuum. We need to get those wider disability services and social issues right because that will impact and improve the situation for Tusla and help with that complexity. I ask the Minister to provide a timeline for the internal therapeutic supports and regional hubs. When can foster carers expect there to be staff who can help with that?

The Irish Association of Social Workers, IASW, told the committee there is a need for a Government-mandated working party. It was seeking a cross-stakeholder group to consider the ins and outs of the issues and complete a breakdown of fostering, how to improve it and what we can do to help with recruitment, retention, recognition and such issues. Would the Minister support that proposal? It has worked in the past. It is a clear recommendation to the committee from the IASW and I will be supporting it.

There are many issues I wish to raise. I will move to that of kinship care, to which the Minister referred. There are many private family arrangements that continue as such due to a fear that although the people doing the caring are good enough to care for the child, they might not pass a foster care committee.

We need to look at that and to ensure that those families first and foremost get supports beyond just child benefit if they are doing the parenting.

There are also questions about the place and role of the foster care committee. Perhaps that needs to be looked at by a Government-mandated working party so we can look at the issues of retention and recruitment of foster carers as well as looking at the kinship care issue.

While I am talking about support, another thing it would be remiss of me not to mention is the challenge in respect of the support that foster carers want. Many times we talk about how many children have an allocated social worker, and we can talk about retention and those issues within social work, but it is equally important to ask how many foster carers have an allocated social worker. I do not know if the Minister has those numbers at his fingertips, but my experience is that that number is a lot worse than the number of children who have an allocated social worker because they often get priority. What is being done to ensure that retention for the support?

I will leave it there. I might come back with some harder questions if the Chair will let me.

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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I agree with the Deputy on the importance of recognition and agree that that recognition can take many forms and that different foster carers prioritise different elements of it according to their particular situation. For some it may be the immediate payment; for some it may be the issue of pensions in the longer term; for some it may be the institutional supports Tusla provides; and for some it is the very practical supports in respect of the services, which I will talk about a little more.

The Deputy is absolutely right on the wider unmet need we have in respect of the provision of children's disability services. It probably has a disproportionate impact because, as we have recognised before, the cohort of children in care may have a disproportionate range of needs. That is why the progressing disability services, PDS, roadmap on which the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, and I are working with the HSE is particular important. The retention and recruitment issue the Deputy has just spoken about in respect of social workers is equally important in respect of therapists. We have seen a drain of therapists leaving children's specialist disability services and going towards primary care or into private practice or leaving the country. That is why the roadmap is so important. It is also important in the context of the very damaged relationship between Tusla and parents in many parts of the country right now. That is an ongoing piece of work on which the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, and I are focusing.

The therapeutic services for children in the fostering system are being developed as part of Tusla's practice reform agenda within the corporate plan. Tusla has prioritised the development of internal therapeutic services to enable timely assessment and to strengthen care planning for children. On foot of that, regional therapy managers are now in place in every region and are beginning to co-ordinate the provision of therapy across internal provision and external provision in the statutory, community and voluntary and private sectors. It is, however, also important to say that new therapists are now being hired by Tusla in six learning sites around the country, with a view to multidisciplinary inputs into care planning for children on admission to care. That will begin at the end of quarter 2 of this year.

Finally, as part of the overall model of care, Tusla is in the process of strengthening governance and oversight of commissioned private therapeutic services. That will be in place by the end of quarter 3. It is a matter of not only better monitoring of the services Tusla brings in but also the provision of some internal therapists, which, obviously, is of particular benefit to children within the care system.

The Deputy is absolutely right on the numbers of allocated social workers because the number allocated to foster carers is lower. That is part of the wider pressure in respect of therapists. We have pressure in respect of foster carers. As Deputy Costello will know, we now offer a place immediately to every young person graduating from a foster care course at a university in Ireland. My Department has engaged with the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science and across a range of third-level institutions to try to identify the driving factors in encouraging more young people to fill in the CAO for foster carers and to get people in other parts of life as well. We recognise that people often come to social work as mature students. It is a matter of supporting that work choice as well.

Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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I am taking that silence as-----

Patrick Costello (Dublin South Central, Green Party)
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Yes. I am way over time so I will not risk the ire of the Chair.

Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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There might be time at the end.

Deputy Creed, I see you have your hand up. Will you just confirm, if you have a question, that you are on the grounds of the Leinster House complex?

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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I am in the complex. I even went to the bother, while I was listening, of putting the Leinster House logo up as a backdrop. It is amazing what one can discover while sitting listening to incisive contributions.

I have just one or two brief questions for the Minister. I will preface them by saying that, as public representatives, most of us, with some notable exceptions, are not professionally equipped to deal with the nature of inquiries that come through our constituency offices with regard to childcare and social work. They are invariably problematic, emotionally charged issues. My overwhelming impression from the engagement I have had is of goodwill on all sides from the point of view not only of people like social workers working with Tusla but also of concerned family members, relations of children in care, etc. The overriding impression I have, however, is of a service under enormous pressure to deal with the volume of cases it deals with and of social workers who are stretched beyond breaking point in many respects in trying to deal with their caseloads. In many respects, notwithstanding their exceptional commitment, there is a high risk of cases being reduced to paper exercises, desktop analyses and inadequate opportunities to engage. That is reflective of skills shortages not just in social work but across a whole range of disciplines in social care, whether speech and language therapy or social work, even in mainstream medical areas.

Given the fact that that issue is at best a long-term fix, is there any interim, innovative, outside-the-box thinking as to how we can resource this area better in respect of the required level of care, observation and attention to the childcare providers, the recipients of care and the professionals dealing with them? It is an area that, in all my time in the Oireachtas, seems to be something of a Cinderella service that is stretched always to the point of breaking. Given the fact that there are recruitment difficulties in all these disciplines now, do we have to face up to what the ultimate solution may be? Whereas we have to recruit many more childcare and social workers and, obviously, have more foster parents, if we will not be able to recruit in the social work area the numbers we need full-time, there will have to be interim solutions. If there are not interim solutions, there are risks to the service being provided. How do we think outside the box in respect of that recruitment process?

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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Deputy Creed is absolutely right not only on the volume of cases that social workers have to see but also on the complexity of the cases they need to address.

One case can now take much longer than it may have done in the past due to its complex nature, as well as the complex needs of a young person a social worker may be dealing with.

Tusla has been innovative regarding the recruitment element. For example, when Bernard Gloster first took over as chief executive, he converted a significant number of agency social workers - people Tusla was using on an agency basis - to full-time, permanent Tusla staff. That was significant in the early part of Mr. Gloster's tenure. That is only something that can really be benefited from on a once-off basis, but they did it. They converted a lot to full-time social workers being employed directly by Tusla. Subsequently, the technique that has been employed over the past two years was to offer all graduates from Irish universities with a social work qualification a job straight away on leaving a university. That has certainly been significant but it is probably still not meeting the overall level of need. That is why retention is so important: holding on to what we have and recognising the pressures social workers are under. Tusla launched its new people strategy last year, which looks at a range of mechanisms to engage with its social work staff, and indeed all its staff, to listen to them and to take on board their views on work-life balance, and on how work within the organisation can be improved.

Another thing that is happening is there is now a greater use of social care workers. Often now, social care workers or social care leads are taking on some of the roles that previously would have been primarily reserved for a social worker. That is in order to recognise the diversity of skills and the diversity of needs. A good or experienced social care worker can provide very significant supports to families and young people.

Those are some of the actions we are taking in the short to medium term. They have had success, but ultimately we need to be training more social workers coming out of our universities each year. That is important and that is why we have been engaging with higher and further education and with the universities. My Department is doing an engagement with CORU, the professional body for social workers, to secure higher numbers qualifying each year. I hope that goes some way towards addressing the Deputy's question.

Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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I call Deputy Cronin.

Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein)
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I thank Deputy Ward, who gave me his place in the committee meeting today. I missed the Minister's opening statement, but I had read it already. He will have noticed that I have tabled a few questions to the Minister around the issue of foster care. He touched on the issue of pensions, on the lack of pensions and PRSI contributions and on the increase in the allowance. He said he has met with the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Humphreys. Can he give us a bit more detail on what kind of movement is there? Is there a timeframe for her to come back to the Minister? How are the negotiations going there? Also, has the Minister received any feedback from Tusla about the fostering drive they had a couple of months ago? Was there was much take-up there?

I would also like ask the Minister if he has considered the model of foster care we have had used thus far in the State. It mainly tends to be done by a mammy who has given up work and who has decided to become a foster family. There may be empty-nesters sometimes. Although I know this issue can be fuzzy, there is a requirement to have an empty spare bedroom. However, that is not happening a lot at the moment, because people have 30-year-olds who are still living at home with them. That model is changing and we need a bit of urgency brought to this case because most foster carers I know of are not working. The mammies are not doing paid work outside the home. However, there are a lot of trips - medical trips, trips to speech and language therapy, mental health appointments, etc. It is not really a job where you are available to work from nine to five, in many cases. Has the Minister has looked at the changing model of foster families we will need?

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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I had a useful meeting with the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, in the context of the recommendation in the Report of the Commission on Pensions about care and the recognition of unpaid care. There is a strong recommendation there. My Department and I, as Minister, are advocating that foster care would be part of that consideration. We had a good engagement with the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, and her officials. I know the officials have been continuing to meet. I do not have a final conclusion on it as of yet, but I will look to meet with the Minister, Deputy Humphreys again on this. Certainly, along with the issues of the allowances and the actual rate of the weekly payment, pensions were among the top three issues that IFCA and Movement 4 Change in Foster Care flagged for me to provide that degree of recognition of the nature of foster care.

We should recognise the nature of foster care, as the Deputy described it. While I will not say it is essential, very often, it is important that one parent is available at all times to meet the degree of need a young person in foster care may have. It is a matter of meeting that diversity of needs. That is what Tusla is trying to achieve in the foster care plan it published last year, as well in terms of some of those financial issues we spoke about and in terms of the greater priority fostering is getting within the organisation now through the appointment of a national lead for fostering. Sometimes we can talk about organisational changes and we can roll our eyes a bit, but it is valuable to have a dedicated person leading on a particular issue. As I said, I was surprised there was not one on foster care already. There is one now and I think that is good.

I also refer to the the changes in terms of the therapeutic supports and providing some in-house therapeutic supports dedicated to foster parents. We recognise - and we have spoken about this before - that so many parents are looking for resources for therapies for children with disabilities. However, we must recognise the particular need among children who are in the foster care system. It will be valuable to have some of those dedicated supports. I would hope this is a tangible example of what the Deputy was speaking about regarding recognising the changing model of foster care. This is not just literally a matter of providing a home, a bed and a family atmosphere, but it is also very much a matter of day to day engagement with the often significant needs of a young person.

Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein)
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Has there been much feedback from Tusla around the recruitment drive they had?

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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We do not have those figures but we can find them and will come back to the Deputy in writing on that issue.

Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein)
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Is the Minister looking at a remodelling? Does he think a bit of urgency is needed in looking at PAYE, PRSI, travel payments, the weekly allowance, etc.? Does he think there is an urgent need for that now, given the change?

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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It is important in light of the fact that the number of foster carers has decreased. We want to arrest that decrease and preferably look at bringing the numbers up again. That is why I have taken a multi-strand approach to the allowance, to the once-off payment, to mileage, to the pension contribution, and to my engagement with Tusla about some of those organisational elements. We are looking at a suite of measures. It was useful that Tusla has brought forward its proposals for fostering at the same time.

We must work together. Some of the elements are directly within my Department's remit and some of them are outside of my Department. We are working to advance all of those because no one of those on their own will address the concerns I have heard from foster parents and their representative bodies.

Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein)
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Is my time up? I do not mind if there is the possibility of a second round.

Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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There will be. Senator Clonan is online so I am not sure whether he has any questions. We can do a second round, starting with Deputy Costello. I assume he has another question?

Patrick Costello (Dublin South Central, Green Party)
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I have three.

Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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Then we will go back to Deputy Cronin.

Patrick Costello (Dublin South Central, Green Party)
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I have three questions and one general point. The Minister mentioned Tusla's relationship with parents and the ongoing issues there, which is a valid point. That also raises the issue of the independent advocacy for the parents of children in care. That is beyond the scope of this discussion so we can leave that for the minute. I want to underline that point but I do not expect the Minister to answer on it.

I agree with the points Deputy Cronin was making. If that feedback is being requested from Tusla, I ask that the following matter be put to it as well and that the answer is shared with the committee. It would be important for us to understand this matter and for Tusla to examine and understand it. When recruiting foster carers there are expressions of interest and the number of expressions of interest drops down a little to actual applications. The number of people who move the application right until the end will be smaller and then you get to the foster care committee. There are various steps and at every step there is a filtering down. Has Tusla ever looked at why people drop off as a way to improve recruitment? Are there structural issues within Tusla? Are its demands so great that everybody is stumbling at the same block? Are these reflections of wider societal pressures that Tusla cannot necessarily fix? That is the sort of information that would be useful to the committee and that would be useful nationally. If that kind of feedback is being requested of Tusla maybe it would answer those questions as well and send on the answers to the committee. That would be helpful.

The best recruiter for a foster carer is often another foster carer. This is why getting into communities where there might not have been a foster carer before is powerful and could open up further recruitment. I know that in the past the Minister had voiced a commitment to looking at recruiting for minorities, migrants and members of the Travelling community. I ask the Minister for an update on how that is going because that is important for meeting the cultural needs of children in care, and also for opening up routes to further recruitment.

I do not expect a response from the Minister on the following point either but it is something important that Tusla needs to look at in its strategic planning. When we were getting witness testimony from the foster care groups we heard from Aoife Bairéad, a social worker who is involved in the Irish Association of Social Workers and who is an independent expert. She talked about the importance of the first placement. Quite often when a young person comes into care it is at a point of emergency and it can be a traumatic and chaotic thing. They can go to one placement for one night, or maybe one week, and then they are on to another and another until that permanent arrangement becomes available. Quite often that is a matter of recruitment because the carers just are not there. At the same time, Tusla uses the number of carers as a marker of trauma and stability. The more stable a placement is and the fewer moves a child has, the better it is for them. The most ideal situation we would have is that the child’s first placement would be their permanent and best placement. To get us to a position where we can do that is going to take a huge amount of work but that needs to be a strategic aim of Tusla, and it is important we say that on the record because that will make life better for all children in care and reduce the trauma and harm they experience. We can talk about trauma-informed practice and all of this but we need to set that as our gold standard because that is the gold standard of foster care.

I wanted to underline those points about relationships with parents; recruitment among new communities, including Travellers and minorities; and the drop-off.

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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We will look to see if Tusla has specific qualitative data on that. The Deputy is right that such information would be useful. On independent advocacy for parents, we are doing a pilot with the Children's Rights Alliance so that would be useful. I am sure most Deputies have spoken to parents whose children are in the care system and they know the trauma and upset they suffer. Having-----

Patrick Costello (Dublin South Central, Green Party)
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When is that pilot expected to get feedback?

Ms Marie Kennedy:

There was research to precede it and then the funding was given the go-ahead relatively recently so I would imagine it will happen within the next year.

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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The committee can continue to ask me about that in our engagements. On the recruitment of minority foster carers, there is some good news. The Traveller programme, which was kicking off when I came into this role, was funded through the Dormant Accounts Fund and that is being mainstreamed. It has proven to be successful in getting parents in the Travelling community to act as foster carers so that is positive. We have to recognise that Travellers are over-represented within the care system so to be cared for by parents within your community is something positive. As the Deputy knows, we brought in another scheme with specific training for parents who are fostering for young people who are unaccompanied minors, and some of those parents would be from minority communities. It is not a requirement of it; there are non-minority parents fostering in that as well but that was also supported and it was particularly important in allowing us to meet our commitment to bring 28 children over from Lesbos who were unaccompanied in a refugee camp there. Those were the key issues that the Deputy had asked me to address.

Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein)
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Could the Minister talk about the lack of mental health services for children? Has that had any impact on the number of children who are ending up in care as a result of families just not being able to cope with them? Is that an issue that has come to the Minister's attention? I have spoken to a few people who are working in that area. They are working with primarily private and outsourced foster care companies and they are telling me that it is an issue they have come across.

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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I do not have qualitative data from Tusla on that. I have no doubt that in some circumstances the lack of mental health supports is probably a driver for creating a system where a family breakdown could perhaps have been prevented and is not prevented because of a lack of supports, leading to a child going into foster care or the wider alternative care system. I do not have qualitative data on the cause and result, however.

Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein)
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There is a new CEO of Tusla, Kate Duggan. With the opportunity of a new CEO and a change of mindset, are Tusla or the Department looking to see if there could be less of a reliance on private fostering? Some of the stories I hear are horror stories. I do not want to break any GDPR concerns by mentioning them.

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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There is an interim CEO of Tusla, Kate Duggan.

Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein)
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Sorry, I thought it was a permanent appointment.

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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There will be a process to appoint the new CEO soon but Kate is in the interim role. Everyone would recognise that in the three and a half years that Bernard Gloster was in the role he was extremely innovative and took on a lot of the challenges that were in Tusla.

Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein)
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I meant no disrespect to him whatsoever. It is just that sometimes a new person has fresh thinking.

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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I understand that.

Moving away from reliance on private fostering would have been something Bernard Gloster felt strongly about and I think it is something Kate Duggan would feel strongly about as well. It is something the Department feels strongly about. There are real challenges there but we are doing the work in terms of the recognition of non-private foster parents and also those supports we are bringing through. Anecdotally, we know one of the reasons some people are going through private fostering is that they feel there are greater levels of supports provided by those organisations. If we have access to therapeutic services, peer-mentoring of foster carers, and a greater prominence for fostering within Tusla, that would go someway towards making non-private fostering more attractive.

Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein)
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Is the Minister saying there is more availability of resources in the private model?

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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I am saying that my understanding from engaging with fostering organisations is that foster carers often feel that those engaged with private fostering are better resourced. I am not making a value judgment on that view but that is what people feel and what often leads people to go into the private system.

Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein)
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I have one follow-up question on that. A worst-case situation is in cases where they cannot get emergency or private fostering. A certain number of children are being put up in hotel accommodation. I have been contacted by a few social workers who have concerns in this area. They have said to me that they feel there is very little oversight. There is just not enough of them to go around to give the proper support to children who are staying in hotels because they cannot get the foster placement.

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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On a weekly basis, there are children in this situation. These are children whose needs are very complex. Unfortunately, they can be very young children who may have substance abuse issues and issues of violence and the like, where they need a multiperson 24-hour team and the only place to provide this is either in hotel or rented accommodation. These situations are unfortunately becoming more common. These emergency placements are a significant focus for Tusla right now. There is a general recognition that these ad hoc placements are not the best provision for these children but because of the complexity of the needs, it is harder to get foster carers or indeed permanent residential care places for them. There is a concern, because these children can be particularly chaotic, if they go into even a residential care situation they will disrupt the regimes and care of the other children there. These placements arise in a situation of last resort but there are more of them arising on an annual basis.

Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein)
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Could the Minister give me an idea of numbers?

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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We could have approximately 50 of these placements per year.

Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein)
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Is that 50 overnights or 50 periods of time?

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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Fifty in play at any one time and yes they would be overnight stays and often over a number of nights.

Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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Most of the points have been raised. The point about the pension is coming up very strongly but I am kind of glad because when many of us were contacted in advance of last year's budget, it was right up against the budget. Hopefully there will be the opportunity this year for that to be addressed. I know foster carers have been campaigning for years but I am conscious as well that some time last year, they started to visit constituency offices which is a really good thing because it puts their issues front and centre and firmly on the agenda. This was before the real crisis of the cost of living that we have now so they really are under pressure. However, enough points have been made on that.

We should always try to make the point that any way of resourcing the family support aspect of Tusla should be looked at in order to try to avoid care settings. In an ideal world, there would never be anybody in foster care. We are not going to get that but if this can be avoided as much as possible where supports are in place. Sometimes we see cases where if there had been a little bit more family support, a care setting could have been avoided. I am obviously not talking about the really horrific situations we come across as well.

My final point is on aftercare which is something that has come up a bit more frequently. I have noticed in the clinics we do that more people are falling through the cracks, particularly if they are not going into further education. They could actually be going into full-time employment but relationships may break down at that point with a foster parent. Plus, when people reach 18, if they are not going on to further education, they nearly reach a bit of a cliff edge. It is something to be conscious of to see what other supports we can give. I know Empowering People in Care, EPIC, do really good work but if there was anything else that could be done to reach out to people who are in that situation to avoid worst-case scenarios.

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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I will respond to the Chair's last point first. As she knows, Tusla are bringing forward three strategies in alternative care. The first is for residential care, the second for foster care, and the third one is for aftercare. That last one should be coming out in the next number of months. It might be useful for us, and maybe even someone from Tusla could come for a session with the committee, to go through that in a little more detail when it is fresh. Since 2017, we have a good basis for an aftercare system in the country but it is undoubtedly imperfect. I am uncomfortable with that kind of difference in treatment between those who go into education and those who do not, in terms of recognising the fact that at that age of 21, people have to make different choices. An education choice then might not be for everyone at that time while someone might come back to something later on. That difference does not always sit easily with me.

The Chair is right in that it is almost always our preference to keep children with their families. The range of supports Tusla rolls out is significant, particularly in terms of the suite of parenting supports. We launched something last summer related to parent supports. Some of these are on the mild level of support. It is not really intervention, but more support. Those graduated levels of intervention are really important. Tusla is very much of the view that by and large it is best to keep children with their families. It is only in those exceptional cases where there is that real need. There are many cases where Tusla has to intervene but where we can avoid that, we do.

Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Minister; Ms Lara Hynes and Ms Marie Kennedy; and all of our members. Is it agreed that the opening statements may be published to the website? Agreed. The committee stands adjourned.