Ms Mary Farrell:

They should have had that. If accounts had been provided to us during the period that we are discussing, 2007 to 2009, we would have been able to see what was happening. We might have been able to intervene and, through the office of wards of court, to ask what was happening and to say "We notice that you have been doing X, Y, or Z". Because we did not have any statements of account we did not know this was happening until it had reached that point. The problem we face now - going into the decision of the Courts Service, whenever it is set up - is that as I mentioned earlier these families will be formally discharged from wardship into the decision support service and those already involved with these wards of court, their families, parents, husbands or wives, will continue to be left with this responsibility at some level unless they are discharged completely from wardship. That means that they will have responsibility for this fund, which is greatly diminished. How are they to be expected to care for someone for the rest of their lives using this diminished fund that will be handed over to them to be their responsibility? They will have to be able to prove that they can manage the fund properly when only part of it is left, or maybe none of it, as the case may be. Families are at the point of having to sell their homes to provide for future care.