Mr. Fred McBride:

I will let the Secretary General answer the question about the proposals within the new legislation. Certainly, it is one of my major concerns as is the presumption of appointing a GAL in every case. It may not be necessary. Some young people can speak for themselves perfectly well and perfectly articulately. If we can arrive at a decision without adding to the process, we should do that. My main concern and that of Tusla is that there is a child in the midst of this process who may be very uncertain about his or her future. He or she may not know whether he or she is coming or going. That is extremely damaging, potentially, to children. Therefore, our starting point from a service-provider point of view is that delays should be minimised where possible. Quite how the new proposals are going to address that, I am not sure. We need to get into some of the detail of that.