Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will come to the economies of scale in a moment. You gave a flavour of what will be in the legislation. The Comptroller and Auditor General's report refers to section 1 of the Children's Act, advisory board guidelines, giving advice to children's wishes, feelings and interests, of May 2009. That group was abolished in 2011. It talks about the qualifications and training for GALs. It looks as though the legislation is substantially a transcription of the document that was abolished five years ago. I find it strange in that there is a proposal from your office to your Minister to agree to the heads of a Bill when you say you have not worked out the question of whether it will be operating within the family courts, whether it will be established as a separate body, or whether it will be placed within an existing statutory structure. It is not known where this is going to go, and yet the heads of a Bill were out yesterday. I am saying that this sounds like more of an ad hocapproach in that you know the details of what a GAL should do, but we do not know the structure. That means that you will be back here. It does not look as if there is a comprehensive picture of where this is going. I would ask you to consider that. It is a slight criticism of the report.