Foster carers can expect an increase in allowances and greater support services from health boards in a new national drive to encourage fostering, to begin shortly, the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, has announced. The incentives are based on recommendations in a report from the Working Group on Foster Care due out shortly.
Speaking at the launch of the Kerry Fostering Recruitment Campaign in Killarney yesterday, Mr Martin said there were no immediate plans to update the legislation to make adoption quicker and easier for parents in longterm fostering.
A pool of short-term foster carers was urgently needed, he said, and the new approach to foster care was that of partnership with health boards and carers.
There are now 2,000 families providing foster care for 3,000 children. Families receive a basic weekly allowance of £73 for each child under 12 and allowances of £84 for those over 12 years. These are set to increase.
"I am aware there have been difficulties in recruitment nationally and this is one of the issues the report will address," Mr Martin said. The skills shortage associated with the Celtic Tiger was one reason for the shortage in carers, but there was also greater demand for foster care.
A survey on foster care in Kerry conducted by the county's senior fostering social worker, Ms Sheila Ryan, in conjunction with Trinity College Dublin, identified alcohol addiction among pa rents as the biggest factor for the majority of children needing foster care. Mr Martin said addiction, particularly to alcohol, was one of the most significant underlying factors in fostering. He said the numbers of foster parents in Kerry, while increasing in recent years, had not kept pace with demand.
There were calls from some foster carers yesterday to bring adoption legislation into line with Britain and other countries where there was a six-month wait for foster parents wishing to adopt their charge, rather than a five-year wait as was the norm in Ireland.
"Foster care is still one of the key instruments we have of alternative family care. Eighty per cent of children coming into care are being placed in foster care," Mr Martin said.
Foster carers did not have to be picture-perfect families, Ms Ryan said. "We take families from all walks of life, married, single, widowed and divorced." The Kerry Fostering Service was also open to applications from gay couples and "to all members of the community", she said.