Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is nice to see Senator Boyhan as the Acting Chairman for this debate. As many speakers have done, I pay tribute to a number of people in this House who have been very vocal and have worked very hard on the issue of protecting our children properly. I include our Minister of State, Deputy Anne Rabbitte, who is very strong in her role with regard to children, and the Minister, Deputy Roderic O'Gorman.

As other speakers said, we must ensure all children who are in care are properly looked after. As stated earlier, 94% of children in general foster care had an allocated social worker, and 91% of children who went to foster care were also looked after. The figures are pretty high but that is not to deny that children can fall through the system. Many of them have challenges, no matter how well they are being looked after. Very few people want to talk about the fact that 49 children and young people died while in care or aftercare between 2010 and 2020. Seventeen of those deaths were the result of natural causes, but the sadness for me is that the other 32 include 15 young people who died from suicide while in care or aftercare. These situations can be very challenging.

Of the service areas inspected, six areas - Sligo-Leitrim-West Cavan, Cavan-Monaghan, Donegal, Mayo, Cork, and Galway-Roscommon - had ensured that each child in foster care had an allocated social worker, which is very important. Other counties are a little behind, and I will not go through them now, but it is important that where we are lagging behind in other counties, we ensure that those children have a social worker. The Childcare (Amendment Act) 2015 placed aftercare services on a strengthened legislative basis, which was important.

It is important that we are having this debate. I believe that everyone is very sincere in what they do, but there is always a challenge for those kids, particularly at Christmas time, which is not far away. From engaging with some of those children, I am aware that they find Christmas very tough. I will remember them in a special way and I wish them all well as we approach Christmas.