Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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That nearly concludes our session but I just wanted to raise one or two points myself. First, I am delighted to hear Ms Gallagher mention kinship care because that is something that often gets overlooked. For everyone's information, a group of kinship carers are coming in to do a presentation in the audiovisual room next Wednesday. I find a lot of people do not actually understand or know what kinship care is so I think it is good for that to be highlighted, as well as the foster care issues that Ms Gallagher raised because there are a lot of very important issues for them as well at the moment.

I just wanted to briefly ask about this because I did not get the opportunity to ask Tusla in the previous session. I often think when we look at these kinds of situations that we are not looking enough at the area of family support, at prevention and families or kids who might be at risk of coming into care. I know we are talking about a lower level of risk here. I am not talking about the very severe cases where obviously children have to come into care. There are a lot of cases that I would have seen maybe ten or 15 years ago where they would have really benefited from a small amount of family support. That would have prevented children going into care and it actually helps the whole family structure. Sometimes it can get to a point where people or parents are overwhelmed. They feel they are not coping and that little bit of extra support and help changes the whole dynamic in the house. What are Ms Gallagher's views on that? We do not really talk enough about putting more resources into family support and trying to prevent children coming into care in the first instance.