Mr. Cormac Quinlan:

There is daily activity on hundreds of cases between the organisation and the Garda. There are a number of structures in place. We have a national structure in place at a senior level and there are structures throughout the organisation at area and local levels in terms of effective engagement working. This is set out under our Children First joint working protocol with the Garda.

On the issue of retrospective abuse, we always have to be careful about how people understand retrospective abuse. To put it in context, retrospective abuse is where an adult comes forward and says he or she was abused in the past by an individual and he or she believes that person might post a risk to a child today.

If we have an identified child with reasonable grounds for a concern to intervene, we will intervene under the Children First and legislative provisions to protect that child.

The challenges arise when we share information about children potentially at risk. For example, this may apply to individuals in a position of employment, such as teachers or people in a youth club. Can we share information with the employer or the youth club to allow them take protective or safeguarding action? The challenge we have is that to share that information with those persons, we must go through a fact-finding or investigation type of process to determine a finding and then share the information. It is in that space that we are challenged fundamentally, as it is not typically a role the agency would hold. We are not investigators of these matters. Where the Garda is involved, it is where the adult complainant wants to progress a criminal matter, but in many of these cases the adult complainant does not want a criminal process. He or she simply wants the agency to effect the rights of other children potentially at risk. We are not always working with the Garda in these cases but rather we are working alone, undertaking a forensic examination to determination a fact. As Mr. Gibson has outlined, there is no legislation to support us in doing this work.