Ms Nuala Ward:

Regarding education complaints, I will reference some of the subcategories we have considered regarding the 47% from 2014. The top five categories of education complaints we receive are: handling of allegations of inappropriate professional conduct; handling of bullying; complaints handling decisions and policy; expulsion, suspension and enrolment; and issues of educational policy, schemes or curriculums. As members may know, this year we published an overview report on the State Examinations Commission. We felt that was a very useful way of trying to highlight some of the challenges for children and young people with disabilities, specifically learning disabilities, in getting adequate support when they are doing their leaving certificate. Our education complaints are therefore broad, so we are considering the whole education sector as well as individual schools. One of the key strengths is that we have that mechanism to consider the whole gambit of children's education. For example, school transport, being able to get to school, is an integral part of this.

Regarding family support, care and protection, complaints mainly concern the Child and Family Agency. We totally accept what has been raised regarding child protection and welfare services, which is why we have included them as one of our key objectives. The top five subcategories in this regard concern child protection concerns; alternative care, that is, care placements, foster care and so on; family support, which is hugely important for prevention and therefore a very key area for us; social work services; and child care preschool and early child care education.

Those are the top five categories to consider for what we call family support, care and protection.