Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. There is certainly merit in considering her idea. The Deputy is probably aware that Tusla is in the AV room today, where I am hosting representatives who are coming in to talk to Members of the Oireachtas about foster caring and how some of us or our constituents who are interested in it can deliver that message and make it clear how people can sign up. Tusla is doing a lot of work on that. It did an amazing garden in Bloom this year, which had a huge amount of throughput and provided people with information on how they might sign up as foster carers.

It is doing huge amount of work on recruitment and I want to acknowledge that. The extra supports we have put in place, such as the new lead for fostering, are having an impact. As I said, we have stabilised things, as there has been a loss over ten years, but we need to grow the numbers. In particular, we need to bring younger families into the system because people cannot foster forever and we understand that.

See this speech in context