Mr. Fred McBride:

Perhaps I will pick up on the issue of resources since a number of members raised it.

Colleagues may chip in on some of the other issues. The committee may be aware that Tusla very much welcomes the budget settlement announced recently by the Minister. We have had additional resources put into our budget for 2016. Of course, we must carefully plan how we will use those resources. Suffice it to say that adoption information and tracing is one of our priorities in our business plan. We realise some of the performance indicators need to improve and, therefore, some additional resources will be required. We still have to plan what that will look like in detail, as the budget for 2016 was just announced.

With regard to social workers, the figures I provided are for the adoption service in particular. They include social workers, counsellors and some nursing staff. Clearly, if we are to eat into that waiting list and bring down average waiting times, etc., we must ensure the process is properly resourced. Perhaps my colleagues, including Ms Mugan, are closer to the ground with regard to the compelling reasons and examples, so she might refer to that as well as to the issue of specialist services.