Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

None of us wants to see this situation. Yesterday, we saw another piece in The Irish Times. This is not the first time that there have been stories like this in the news. Last year, the retired Dublin District Court, Dermot Simms, spoke out on this. At that time, there were 130 children. If the plan is to deliver 110 places by the end of 2025, we are already way behind the curve. We need to start moving away from the private sector because the idea of having profit mixed with vulnerable children will not work.

The two areas we need to focus on are how we can support foster carers and what we can do to increase the number of people who are willing to become foster carers. In fairness, the sector has been vocal on solutions.

The other issue is the recruitment and retention of social workers. As I about to run out of time, I will come back to that in a moment.

See this speech in context