Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy has made his points very well. As I said, they are timely in the context of the review being conducted within my Department. The Deputy referred in particular to the income supports that are provided to those who take on this important and special role on behalf of the State. As I set out in my reply, there are other forms of support in addition to income support that are part of the system and are also significant. These include regular home visits and telephone contact from an assigned fostering link worker and the allocation of a social worker to each child, who visits the child and maintains a link with his or her birth family. In addition, foster carers may apply for child benefit for each child in their care and there is a comprehensive training programme for carers at both the pre-approval and post-approval stage. Each child in foster care will have his or her own medical card. These additional supports illustrate the effort on the part of the State to acknowledge the extraordinary role carried out by foster carers.

See this speech in context