Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I was hoping Senator Ruane would be before me. I thank the Minister for coming here today to take these statements. I thank Senator Ruane for raising this matter and giving us this opportunity. There is no doubt that there are exceptional foster families, individuals, couples and family situations that are fantastic. There are many people who would probably like to be foster carers. Because I am involved in IVF, surrogacy, fertility and other such groups, fostering comes up in discussions of alternative pathways. One of the repeated statements I hear - I am probably guilty of holding this myself - is from people who believe they could never be a foster parent because the idea of the child not being theirs would be scary. This suggests to me that we probably need an information campaign. It is a repeatedly statement. I am not alone in that. It is difficult for people to imagine loving a child, only to see him or her going back to his or her family. Obviously, a particular mindset is needed, and a particular form of care and love happens, to be able to do that. We need education programmes to assist people in all the emotional requirements as well as the practical requirements when it comes to fostering. That would be a big discussion.

There is no doubt there are exceptional social workers. A recent report from Empowering People in Care, EPIC, contained quotes on how amazing social workers were, and the voices of children on how incredible they were. However, there is a massive turnover in social workers and a lack of consistency and stability when it comes to relationships. A child who is already vulnerable has an advocate from Tusla and his or her social worker. When the relationship works, it works really well. If that advocate changes on a regular basis, it reiterates that undermining of trust and relationships. I worry about the long-term effects on attachment and stability of relationships in adulthood. If there is no modelling of consistency, what will flow from that? Questions such as career pathways come up when we look at the causes of the high rate of turnover. Are some of the social workers inexperienced? Should we be doing a greater in-house apprenticeship-type model? Should we look at how many places there are? Are there sufficient places? Where are social workers being poached to or moving to? Is social work with children a transitional route to better or more secure roles? We need a review of why people leave and why there is a big turnover in staff. Is it just that they are overworked, or that there are not enough of them? If so, do we need to work with the Minister, Deputy Harris, to ensure we have enough places in schools? Perhaps it goes back to creating an intentional interest at post-primary level to ensure this is a career of choice for those who have an interest and an aptitude. There is no doubt that we need more social workers.

I would like to speak about the process of a child becoming the subject of a care order and going into care. Family law is not something I ever aspired to work in. Those who have the patience for it are incredible people. At an early stage, I found myself wanting to shout at a parent who was really appalling and was allegedly my client. I decided then that I should never do family law. I was too opinionated in regard to my clients. Those who practise family law work in an extraordinarily adversarial environment where people come in to give opinions about a vulnerable mother - in the main - and how she is managing as a parent. One instance cited to me was a case in which a decision was to be made on whether a child should be taken into care and be made the subject of a care order. The evidence that was brought before the court was that the mother in the case required too much support. Fortunately, the solicitor cross-examining had the wit to ask how much support she was provided with. How much is too much? The answer was one hour a week, which seems shockingly low. It seems to me that anyone who considers that to be a lot, and believes that the mother in this case was particularly needy, is working in a sphere very different from the rest of us and how the rest of us would think.

When I canvassed for a couple of comments in advance of this evening's debate, one solicitor said to me that there needs to be additional support and that these mothers would not be in the position they are in if they had adequate support. I think that is a little bit too much, because some of them probably have adequate support. I think we would all be of the view that the best place for a child is with his or her mother. At the same time, sometimes mothers need breaks. It is not always about support, but clearly there is a trend of a lack of support or of inadequate support. The solicitor to whom I spoke suggested that if the money spent on placements and assessments was spent on supporting families, everybody would be much better off. Maybe a balance can be struck by making sure more than one hour a week is provided. In some of the examples, the criteria used when deciding whether parenting is good enough seem to be quite harsh. There are judgments around floors being sticky. If they walked into our house at certain times, God bless us, I am not sure I would pass judgment. It comes back to consistency and stability. This is the mantra of the Child and Family Agency, which is always concerned with mothers failing to provide consistency and stability. When we, as a State, adjudicate that it is not in the best interests of children to leave them with their parents and instead put them into a system where they move between different foster families and different social workers, we are failing to provide consistency and stability.