Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 29 February 2024
77. Deputy Kathleen Funchion asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth what engagement he has had with Tulsa as it struggles to respond to increased demand for its services, given that this increased demand, together with the complex needs of the children and young people presenting, have swamped the agency (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9495/24]
View answerMy question is particularly relevant this week given some of the things we have, unfortunately, seen in the news. What engagement has the Minister and his Department had with Tusla on its struggles to respond to increased demand for its services, given that this increased demand, together with the complex needs of the children and young people presenting, have swamped the agency? I ask him to make a statement on this matter, particularly the special emergency arrangements.
The care and welfare of children in care is a priority for the Government. I and my Department were very much aware of the issues the Deputy has raised and these continue to be the subject of focused and continuous engagement between my Department and Tusla at every level.
As we know, Tusla is facing significant and ongoing challenges in sourcing appropriate placements for children in the care of the State. This is due to a number of factors, including difficulties in recruiting and retaining staff, difficulties in maintaining the number of foster carers, the complexity of the presentation of some children presenting to Tusla, and the unprecedented number of separated children seeking international protection who require Tusla services. Tusla has also advised that referrals to the agency increased by 10% between 2022 and 2023, and they now stand at roughly 91,500 per year.
The challenges listed by the Deputy have also been the subject of commentary from a number of key stakeholders, specifically the Ombudsman for Children, the special rapporteur on child protection and the courts. Tusla has responded. In the first instance, it published strategic plans for foster care, residential care and aftercare. These include a range of actions the agency plans to undertake in order to increase capacity in alternative care and ensure that these services continue to meet the needs of children and their families. The strategic plan for residential care seeks to reduce reliance on private provision of residential care placements by creating a total of 110 new residential care placements by the end of 2025.
I share the Deputy's concern in relation to Tusla's current reliance on special emergency arrangements, SEAs. Tusla, supported by my Department, is working to reduce reliance on SEAs. In the interim, specific measures are being taken to promote and support the quality and safety of these placements.
My Department is supporting the strategic plan for residential care and other measures to allow Tusla to maintain and expand its services by securing additional funding in budget 2024. Budget 2024 represented the largest single annual increase in core funding since Tusla's establishment and Tusla, as we know, now has an annual budget of over €1 billion.
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.
The Deputy is absolutely right about the importance of moving away from private sector reliance, which is significant. I made the investment in Tusla this year in order that it can grow its own stock of residential placements. We are also looking at supporting the community and voluntary sector. I met its representatives in January and discussed what the sector can do to provide additional residential care places.
I agree with the Deputy on foster care. That is why we have taken significant steps this year to support foster care. By the end of this year, the foster care allowance will have increased by €75 per child. It increased by 25% on 1 January and the remainder of the increase will apply from 1 November. This will mean that this year, foster carers will receive additional support of €1,700 per year and by the end of 2025, that figure will have increased to an additional €3,900 per year. That is a necessary and recognition of the hugely important role foster carers play in terms of children in care.
Those measures were welcome. Is there a forum or an opportunity for representatives from the social worker sector, Tusla and foster carers to sit down with the Minister? Perhaps one is already in place. Tusla, in fairness, says that as well. Everybody says we cannot have this and we need to end special emergency places, yet we end up having to resort to them. I understand that in a crisis a place has to be provided for a child but, as I know from people I deal with, these places are the worst situation for children. They mainly involve older teenagers who have come from a difficult and traumatic situation and are suddenly placed in a hostel, bed and breakfast accommodation or a hotel. It is not what we want to see.
I welcome some of the measures that have been taken but there needs to be a greater sense of urgency in relation to it, particularly greater imagination around the recruitment and retention of social workers. What is Tusla doing to promote that? Is it talking to transition year students? What is it doing? Are Tusla who could grade up, as it were, doing so? Everything is moving very slowly and we need more urgency.
The Deputy asked quite a few questions. In terms of engagement with the sector, I have met representatives of the Irish Foster Care Association, IFCA, the representative body for foster carers, and also of Movement for Change, which is a new representative body, several times and discussed the increase in funding. I met both of those organisation after the budget as well.
In terms of bringing the wider sector together and facing the challenge of overreliance on SEAs, the Children's Rights Alliance, in the latter part of last year, convened a group, including Tusla. The Ombudsman for Children fed into that, as did many of the direct providers.
The group is drawing up a report right now on where the priorities are in regard to residential care and setting out key recommendations. I expect to see that report in the next number of weeks. It will be an important document and I look forward to working with the Deputy on it.
A lot of work is going into increasing the number of social workers. An apprenticeship programme will be kicking in from September. For the first time, we will be training social workers via an apprenticeship model, which is a new and important innovation. A significant number of Tusla social care workers are being sponsored to undertake social work degrees. This is in line with what the Deputy suggested about training up people within the organisation.
