Mr. Mark Toland:

Within that they have developed a protocol between Tusla and the Garda Síochána about what should happen next. The Deputy has hit the nail on the head. We have found inconsistencies across Ireland about how that operates. We have found that in some places there is a very good contact between Tusla and the Garda Síochána but there is an ad hocor unstructured approach in other places.

Many of the Garda members that have been given liaison roles with Tusla have other jobs. They might be a community policing sergeant who also has to liaise with Tusla. That means he or she is not always available and it is not his or her full-time job. That is why we think a dedicated specialist Garda unit in a local division that covers a county should be a single point of contact for Tusla. The establishment of such a unit will address many of our concerns. Those specialist officers will then be available to attend meetings where they will discuss serious cases.