In the past the only organisation that tried to take major efforts to help with such matters was the Catholic Church but the risk being blamed for the pre-existing difficulties as well as any less than 4 star facilities is too great and they don’t have the numbers of vocations anyway.

Systematic physical, sexual and psychological abuse Tom inflicted from such organisations on young children in Artane Industrial School etc is a past we can well do without.

The Church didn’t give a damn about the children in their care, if you care about a child you don’t leave them in freezing cold dorms in the Irish winter, if you care about a child you don’t beat them with a leather belt for the slightest precived misbehavior, if you care about a child you don’t use them as free labour, if you care about a child you feed them properly, if you care about a child you don’t leave them in soiled clothes all day, if you care about a child and he wets the bed you don’t force him to sleep in wet bedlinen all night, if you care about a child, you don’t try and silence him when he says he was raped.
The Church didn’t view those children as kids that needed help, they view then as raw resouces to be consumed, to try and attach any sort of altruism to what was done in those “schools” is moral relativism of the highest order.

Well said Peter, myself and my Husband are approved to adopt, and are in the process 6 years with no light at the end of the tunnel due to red tape and processes. We would love to give a child a good home, however SW were not keen on us fostering.
I do admire the Minister, she was a Social Worker herself, and she is also a Mother, but she is fighting an uphill battle.
It’s a terrible terrible shame because not only would you be changing one young persons life, but also their childrens lives.

As someone who worked in the field during the previous governments tenure I can say that things were at least as bad if not worse when we had money to burn. Too simplistic to blame a minister who has been in the post 2 years for a problem that has been decades in the making.

I should say the father not foster carer is a convicted paedofile. Management encouraged and fascilitate his access fully with his child who is unaware of his conviction. Father has been duscovered giving the child porn.

Keith, I have plenty of single friends who would love to be foster parents and who would make great carers but as they are single, theyve been told that theyd have to quit their jobs to look after foster kids as they need to be available 24/7. This restricts the number of good caring potential foster parents.

They can still be respite or weekend/emergency carers or offer supported lodgings Tommy. These options should have been suggested to them.

Keith, I also inquired about fostering but was told as we didn’t have a spare room we couldn’t….surely it would be better to share a room in caring environment than go to an unsuitable home? I can’t get my head around the states inability to care for vulnerable children, it’s appalling.

Hi Eimear. A lot of these children come into care with a myriad of trust/privacy and various other social concerns that take time to work with. You have to understand their own space is a premium that must be utilised while they develop.

It is rather homophobic the fostering assessment in which there are extra questions for LGBT people in which it investigates if they have come to terms with their sexuality! Surely the same criteria should apply to all. The HSE also excludes gays from giving blood in fairness so it needs to progress.

Hi Nicola. Children need a mother and a father not a mother and a mother or a father and a father. They need this in order to grow up in the natural family unit which is healthy for them and need that male and female role model in their lives. You may say they have uncles who can act as good role models but children need a father not an uncle. Putting children with same sex couples is actually a form of child abuse as it deprives them of their natural and basic right to a mother and a father.

My views are more fundamental than the fundamentalist and more modern than the modernist Nicola. Nothing Stone Age or weird here.

Not all children have both parents Stephen. I guess you’ve never heard of single parents. A ‘natural’ environment as you call it may be far from a safe place for a child thus their need to go into care. There are some great foster carers out there both gay and straight. Homosexuality is as natural among species as heterosexuality. My fear for someone like you Stephen is that one of your children or grandchildren might turn out LGBT and that this self-hatred and homophobia you’ve programmed into them leads them to suicide. How could you live with yourself?

But they do grow up in the natural environment even under a single heterosexual parent, because they are given that natural education on what it does take to make up a family unit by their heterosexual single parent. In addition to this For some of the dads who are not around, the child is still given the understanding that he or she has a father and this is how families are supposed to work. It is not the ideal situation for a child to grow up in and it can be hard on the single parent. But better a heterosexual parent than being brought up in a very extremely unnatural state by a same sex couple.

I am not a homophobe. I am very tolerant of everyone just not their principles. I disagree with the gay agenda and activity but it wouldn’t stop me from having a normal day to day healthy conversation with someone of that mindset or creating a friendship. The same goes with just about anyone I disagree with no matter their creed.

Well said Stephen.
I fully agree and may I just add its not a right or entitlement of any one or couple to adopt or be a foster parents.
Its a privilege that if the opportunity arises they are lucky to get.

Looks like Tom the Troll has crawled into bed with you Stephen. Dress up your homophobia and trolling whatever way ye like lads ;)

@ Stephen. If you are at large you shouldn’t be. Your a religious nut with antideluvian views in what is normal. Lets hope people are more humane towards your wife’s cancer than you are to others.

Gay agenda? This is a bizarre and nonsensical rant with no basis in reality. The best place for children is in a loving and caring environment. Being homosexual doesn’t normally preclude people from providing this. Terrible to be so bigoted.

There’s a breech of the in camera rule.

How did you come to that theory seeing as its foster care and not adoption that is being discussed?

Prayers don’t help these unfortunate children but good foster carers in which there are many but not enough do.

Stephen, the lord didnt help these kids now did he?
Just proves he doesnt exist as those meant to be spreading his word were really raping ,abusing and beating them.

Christ have mercy.