Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House. I thank the Leader of the House for scheduling this debate. As was mentioned, Senator Ruane requested this debate on the Order of Business.

I want to focus my comments in my short contribution on aftercare services. I do not need to tell anyone in the House that it is a support provided to young people who have been in care for a period of time before their 18th birthday and it is governed by the Child Care (Amendment) Act 2015. According to a discussion document published in June of this year by Empowering People in Care, EPIC, 2,943 young people were in receipt of aftercare services in quarter 4 of 2020. For many of those young people, aftercare supports are falling below what is required. That has been the case for those who have come through aftercare services, and unless the State makes a range of reforms and changes to have a more holistic and person-centred approach, this will continue to be the case for young people who have yet to come through aftercare services. Whether it is the Department, the Houses of the Oireachtas, Tusla or organisations like EPIC, we should be looking to other jurisdictions and learning from them about how we can improve situations for young people.

Here at home we also need better data, which was mentioned by Senator Garvey. We should know how young people in care are doing when compared with their peers who are not in care or in aftercare services, for example, how young people in care are performing in education. EPIC has called for better data gathering of children in care, aftercare and beyond. We need that data and longitudinal studies.

I do not need to remind anyone in the House that the State has an incredibly important role in supporting children in care. We must ensure young people are equipped to prepare to leave care and the structures are in place for them to live life independently. Housing is a major issue for young people leaving care. The National Youth Council of Ireland has noted in its pre-budget submissions time and again that there are many reasons young people can experience homelessness. Issues such as reduced social welfare support, young people being a lower priority on housing waiting lists, unsuitable emergency accommodation and, in this case, inadequate support services, especially for those leaving care, are major contributory factors. Many young people have difficulty accessing affordable and quality housing in the private rental market or in the social housing sector.

I want to cite some of the recommendations for aftercare provision in the EPIC report and I invite the Minister to respond to them. The report recommends aftercare services should be placed on a statutory footing as a right for every child leaving State care. The provision of an aftercare plan and, importantly, the implementation of such plans should be enshrined in legislation. Aftercare supports on a needs assessed basis should be provided up to the age of 26 years. There should be consistency in the detail of aftercare provision regardless of geography or where somebody lives.

Those are some of the issues I would like the Minister to respond to in his concluding remarks. I apologise for being late in arriving but I read the Minister's opening statement which was provided by his officials. I thank Senator Ruane for requesting this debate.