Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will answer Deputy Ó Caoláin's questions first. The Garda vetting situation impacts on a whole range of Government activities, from job activation programmes to recruitment of social workers and child care workers through to recruitment, as we are discussing today, of foster parents. Forty additional staff have been allocated to the Garda vetting office in recent weeks and we are already seeing a huge improvement in waiting times. The average wait had been reduced to two to three weeks, which is where it ideally should be. The delays have certainly been an issue in terms of the processing of foster carer applications. Some commentators have raised the issue of multiple vetting and proposed that we should instead introduce a type of vetting passport which an individual could carry from one job to another. There are inherent risks in such an approach, but it might be worth considering in order to deal with the current delays. Child protection must of course be at the centre of all our decisions, but there is no denying that the delays in Garda vetting procedures have impacted on many areas.

There is a standardised approach to the assessment of foster carer applicants in the different local areas in the same way as there is a standardised approach to assessment for adoption. On foot of the Deputy's question, I will ask for a report on the outcome of the foster parent recruitment campaign. It will be helpful to see if and where there has been recruitment in different parts of the country and how that has been handled.

Deputy Murphy referred to the maternity vacancy issue. As I said, there are significant pressures on social worker teams throughout the country given the nature of the work, retention issues and so on. A very high rate of maternity leave among staff is also a factor. The ideal would be to have a panel of qualified people who could go in and fill vacancies so that the ongoing work could continue. If the fostering recruitment situation were to be dealt with at a national level, with local input, that might also address some of those issues.

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