Shadow Minister for Women's Affairs Suzann Roberts-Holshouser has rejected Government claims that significant progress is being made in area of child abuse.

While the total number of reported cases has come down this year, from 443 children in 2003 to 429, those figures do not take into account the "invisible children" who suffer from abuse but do not alert the authorities, she said.

She also accused the Government of being more concerned with numbers than actually solving the problem of abuse by rushing them through the Department of Family Services often without the proper support and counselling.

Speaking in the House of Assembly on Wednesday, Mrs. Roberts-Holshouser said she had "enormous concerns" over the standard of foster care in Bermuda while she called for the formation of a Child Abuse Register, so that past offenders could not slip unnoticed back into working with children once they had "served their time".

She further questioned why Government was spending over $400,000 on renovations at the Premier's ceremonial residence Camden in the Botanical Gardens, "when I know of a foster child who is sleeping on a thin mattress on the floor of his new home"?

Along with a "limited" support structure for foster children as soon as they turn 18 and the "urgent" need for a transitional emergency family centre, Mrs. Roberts-Holshouser said she remained unconvinced that Government is "fully committed" to improving the lives of abused children in foster care.

But in a statement read to the House by Environment Minister Neletha Butterfield on behalf of the Acting Health Minister Walter Lister, it was revealed that a foster parent recruitment drive has yielded another 20 willing participants, taking the total number to 81.

And a number of cross Ministry initiatives are "currently being developed" to improve the overall level of care.

The debate was brought to a conclusion before the Government could respond at length to the Opposition's accusations.