Ms Mary Farrell:

When a person goes into wardship the State takes responsibility for the person and his or her estate. That is huge and means that the State is fully responsible for the person. Some responsibility is then delegated to the person's committee and if the person is lucky, that will be a family member who will be active on his or her behalf.

The report of the Committee of Public Accounts from 2015 made recommendations around exemptions. It recommended, for example, that wards whose funds are running low would be exempted from the normal qualifying criteria when they apply for a medical card or other State benefits. Some groups of people who have received compensation, such as the hepatitis C group, have had the earnings from their funds disregarded when they applied for a medical card or other State benefits. We certainly believe that the wards should be treated in a similar fashion. There is no linkage between the wards of court system and any other services such as health or social welfare. Such a linkage could bring about a change in that regard and help or support wards of court in terms of what they are trying to do.

A ward of court is assigned a case officer. We have had many case officers over the years, having been in the system for 27 years. We found some of the Courts Services personnel to be very courteous and helpful. They came to meetings with the HSE and so forth. We found others who were not helpful at all. One might have to write to the President of the High Court to get a reply to a letter or a response to a query. One could be waiting for a year. Some people are held up.

There is another element to this. Can I digress?