Maureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for her reply. There is a role for residential care services but some of the voluntary services have raised concerns with me. They are alarmed at what they perceive to be the privatisation of the service, similar to what was done in England with disastrous consequences there. In England, there were zero-hour contracts for the staff and thus very low staff retention, which has a negative effect on the relationships between young people and the staff. I have had engagement on this issue with a number of services in the Dublin and greater Dublin areas and they are very concerned. The staff in voluntary residential services here are not on zero-contract hours and, therefore, they have all been in those services for a long time and they have built up relationships with young people. They are concerned that service provision into the future will be a tick-box exercise in terms of whether children are being fed and a service complies with governance and so on. While the relevant boxes may be ticked off, this is not an indication of the quality of the services. It appears there is a bigger agenda which seems to be undermining the community and voluntary sectors. I am seeing this in Dublin Central, where the community and voluntary sectors play an important role.

I welcome that there will be a consultation process but it must be real consultation and not one to which Tusla comes with a prearranged agenda.

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