Sir, - I refer to recent reports of a homeless boy in the Southern Health Board's area. This Board, in removing the boy from his family, assured a judge that they (the Board) could provide better care for him than he was receiving from his family.
Giving this young 13 year old a meal voucher daily is not providing adequate care. The reports say that this boy has run away from residential units in the past. We would ask if this boy's needs have been properly assessed? Has foster care been considered? To say they (the Board) have no secure unit does not negate the "duty of care" the Board owes to this boy. The Southern Health Board's own Review or Child Care Services, 1994, states that "one third of young people who have presented as homeless to the SHB have been in resident care".
Over 80 per cant of children in the care of this State are in foster care. Unfortunately, foster care has been so under resourced and "foster carers so badly supported that it is proving impossible to get more foster families this Association has found that morale among foster carers is at an all time low - and yet foster care provides children who cannot live, with their own families with a family life at a fraction of the cost of residential care or indeed of buying houses and staffing them on a rota basis.
Isn't it short sighted in the extreme to continue to under estimate this valuable service being provided by hundreds of families for hundreds of children in care throughout the country? This young boy, and other children in this situation, are at risk because the Health Boards and the Minister have failed to take notice of countless findings in countless reports, including their own Adequacy of Service reports. They have failed to support foster care and in doing so have failed the children in their "care". - Yours, etc.,
National Secretary, Irish Foster Care Association, Dublin 14.