The Department of Health has said it has no plans to review rules relating to the granting of foster care allowances, despite a request from the Ombudsman for the Oireachtas to examine the current regulations. Liam Reid reports.
The request came in the annual report of the Ombudsman, Ms Emily O'Reilly, which highlighted a case in which a woman who took her grandchildren into care was entitled to social welfare payments amounting to just one third of what a foster carer would be entitled to.
The woman took over the care of her two young grandchildren after she became concerned that her daughter, a chronic drug addict, was unable to care for them.
She found she was entitled to some welfare payments, in the form of Orphan's allowance, which currently stands at 97 per week.
This is given in circumstances where a parent has failed to provide for a child. However, her application for Foster Care Allowance, of €289.50 per week, was refused, as her grandchildren had not been placed in her foster care by the health board. While relatives can qualify for foster care allowance, under law the child in question has to be first taken into care and then placed in foster care by the health board.
The ombudsman found it was not an option for her to examine whether the children might be placed in foster care, as it was the professional opinion of staff from the South Western Area Health Board, that this was not necessary, as the children were never at risk because of the supervision of their grandmother.
The board acknowledged that there were many similar situations in its own area alone.
While unable to intervene in the case, the Ombudsman empathised with the position of the grandmother and suggested that the Oireachtas might look at relaxing conditions in relation to the foster care allowance to take into account such cases, which were quite frequent.
However, the Department of Health has ruled out any changes to legislation relating to foster care.
In a statement to The Irish Times, the Department said that the extra money for foster carers, was justified by the "significant responsibilities and duties on foster carers" arising out of childcare legislation.
A 2001 expert group on foster care had examined the possibility that children living with relatives might technically be placed in foster care so as to provide extra resources for relatives, the Department said.
However, this group had decided that such a course of action - placing the children technically in care - would be inappropriate. "The group was strongly of the view that such a practice would be highly inappropriate," the statement said.