Mr. Fred McBride:

Yes, the Deputy asked about escalation. As I stated, at local level, area managers and principal social workers regularly liaise with the Garda to examine individual cases where things may not have gone as well as they should have done or joint working has not been effective. Senior gardaí regularly call me or the chief operations officer if they are concerned about a particular case that has not been dealt with appropriately. As I stated, the chief operations officer, director of policy and I attend quarterly strategic liaison meetings with gardaí at assistant commissioner level. Mechanisms are in place to escalate cases if something goes wrong or if something is not as effective as it should have been.