asked the Minister for Local Government and Public Health whether he will recommend to local authorities that they should pay foster parents of boarded-out children the same weekly amount as is payable in respect of children committed to industrial schools, so as to encourage fosterage as against institutional accommodation for orphan children.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Payment of Foster Parents.
My Department has availed itself of every suitable opportunity to impress upon the responsible local authorities the desirability of fixing adequate maintenance rates and clothing allowances in respect of boarded-out children, and has also consistently favoured a policy of placing destitute children, suitable for being boarded out, in rural foster-homes in preference to retaining them in institutions. The services in respect of which the State and local authorities make payments on a per capita basis to the authorities of industrial schools include the education and training of children sent to such schools. Teachers are employed and paid for that purpose, and books and other educational requisites are supplied.
Boarded-out children, on the other hand, are taught in the local national schools, and books, etc., and any educational requisites for which charges are necessary are met by the local authorities. The services covered by the weekly or monthly payments in industrial schools and in foster homes are, therefore, not quite analogous.
In recent years large numbers of children were sent to industrial schools on the ground that their parents were unable to support them. Local authorities have been advised to have the circumstances of such parents reviewed periodically, so that where the continued detention of children on the ground of poverty of the parents is found to be no longer warranted, steps may be taken to secure their discharge.
Arising out of the Minister's reply, is the Minister aware that district justices now complain that there is no room in the industrial schools, and so they are unable to send delinquent children who clearly require institutional treatment into these institutions? Would it not be desirable, in view of that new development, that the Minister should again advise local authorities that where they can get a good family to take destitute children in, they should be prepared to pay the foster parents as much as they are prepared to pay the institution, and thus provide a family background rather than institutional treatment when there are no special circumstances surrounding the children except the loss of their parents or extreme poverty?
But, in fact, we are doing everything we possibly can to that end.
Would the Minister have a circular issued to the local authorities pointing out that the capacity of the industrial schools is exhausted, and that this is an additional reason for renewing their efforts to get good families to take the children in by increasing money payments to foster parents? I am convinced that a very small additional sum would get 70 or 80 per cent. of the children taken into decent homes. There are plenty of good foster parents if the local authority would give anything like what they give to the institutions. Would the Minister consider doing something?
I am not going to commit myself to circularise the local authorities asking them to impose additional charges on the rates, when I am asked on the other hand to keep the rates down.
All that I am asking is that they should give the foster parents what they are giving to the institutions. I am not asking for one halfpenny more. If that were done, 80 per cent of the children could be taken into good families.
In reply to the Deputy's question, I pointed out that the payments do not cover analogous services.
Very nearly.
To the extent to which they do cover analogous services, the payments are more or less equivalent.
Well, they are not.