There are three Deputies remaining - Deputies Fiona O'Loughlin, Brian Stanley and Carol Nolan. I ask for brief and relevant questions.

The Programme for a Partnership Government stresses the need to intervene early and set a path for vulnerable children, including foster children. This is certainly not working at this point in time. I will give one example. A foster mother in my constituency that I have been dealing with in the last few months took into her care a nine-year old boy whose parents are drug addicts and whose dad is in jail. She has provided a very loving and caring home for a child with very particular needs.

Does the Deputy have a question?

She has been fighting for counselling and supports for this child for months. The school has been excellent as well. Yesterday, she heard that the child was going to be removed from this loving and caring home and put into a residential home.

A question, please.

This is absolutely wrong and is not putting the child at the centre. I believe that this commitment in the programme for Government is failing.

If the Deputy has details about an individual case, I ask her to liaise with Tusla because, of course, it puts the child at the centre. Any decisions about the care of a child in the circumstances the Deputy describes would be taken on a professional basis. I do not think it would be appropriate for me to comment on any case. We have developed, and the Government has prioritised, early childhood care. We have prioritised the funding of Tusla. We have prioritised making sure that there are enough social workers available to do the kind of work in the professional way that the Deputy outlines that needs to be done. Very importantly, we have had a whole series of reports from HIQA into fostering services identifying the very many strengths. Again and again, we have seen reports that state that children are getting an extremely good service from our foster parents. There has been increasing support of foster parents, which of course they need.