James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank everybody for their questions. I genuinely meant what I said earlier that I believe this committee has been very good at teasing out matters and improving our legislation for children.

The ICT support for the Health Service Executive, was raised by many members. During the Estimates process, moneys were sought for this which we allocated. The performance statement has been issued. We have emphasised ICT and the national child care information system in that. I made this clear at a meeting I had with the chairman and the chief executive officer of the executive. They are also concerned about this. It is not an issue of replacing one with the other but ensuring we have a joined-up service and there is not duplication. These are important but expensive services to provide. We need to have more cohesion.

We have the jigsaw programme, run by Headstrong, which uses speech and language therapists, occupational therapists and other professionals. From the Department's point of view, we see the Tusla service focusing on the overall psychological welfare of children, including general and non-acute supports. Acute services such as child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, should stay in the HSE, unless there is a big shake-up of the whole set-up. Whatever service configuration we develop, we need to agree working relationships with the HSE to ensure no gaps or duplication occur. Only in the past several days, I received a document on this. It will have to be further considered and we will engage the HSE, Tusla and others. Moneys have been put aside for this and in the interim we are purchasing private psychological services for children in care who are known to Tusla while we await an eventual agreement, so that children are not left disadvantaged.

In relation to the learner fund, I might ask my colleague, Ms Bernie McNally-----