Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)

The issue I am raising is peculiar to Dublin inner city communities. It relates to that scourge of disadvantaged areas, heroin, a killer in every sense of the word that has caused devastation. Death, sometimes by suicide, is the by-product of overdosing or overuse of the drug and many young children are orphaned as a result of the drug's heavy toll on the lives of young people. Many of those children are taken in by their grandparents, aunts and uncles. The generosity of inner city communities knows no bounds and the extended families immediately step in and raise the children as their own. Effectively the children are adopted, though not formally.

The Department of Social and Family Affairs pays an allowance to such families. Families such as these receive €121 per week for the child from the Department of Social and Family Affairs. If, instead of taking the child in immediately, a family waited for the HSE to take the child into care, the child would then be the responsibility of the Department of Health and Children. If the family then fostered the child from the Department of Health and Children, even if the child was in the care of that Department for only one night, the family would be entitled to the Department of Health and Children allowance, which is €320 per week, almost three times the amount received from the Department of Social and Family Affairs. By immediately taking care of the orphan rather than allowing the State service to intervene in the first instance the extended family is penalised by the State.

Children become orphans in other tragic circumstances, such as road accidents, but this issue particularly relates to disadvantaged inner city communities, especially in Dublin, because 85% of heroin use is in the Dublin area. Many of these cases relate to heroin orphans. A relatively small number of people are involved, approximately 2,000, and it is time the two Departments came together and synchronised the payments they are making to these families for the same response and contribution. The families support, raise and nurture these children in the same way, yet the State's contribution is lopsided.

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