Ms Tanya Ward:

Not necessarily. Of what we are aware is that Tusla does not have sufficient educational welfare officers to do the job. It responds to all reports, but it needs more educational welfare officers because it needs to be able to chase the non-attendance of children in school. If one looks at Carol Coulter's report which documents children in child care cases in the courts, one will see that a significant number have not been in school. One wonders what happened from an educational point of view. If one looks at the statistics for children in the Oberstown centre, one will find that a significant number were not in school. How come they were not in school? How come measures were not taken to address the issue? It is an issue that at the very least needs to be addressed.