John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Before we conclude, does any of our witnesses want to make any final remarks or comments? No, they are happy enough. As an observation, I noticed that the original presentation to this committee was in November of last year. It is interesting that the presentation today has moved forward more positively. The Department has increased the staff of the scope section. It has established a new unit and is talking about introducing legislation to protect people who take cases to the Workplace Relations Commission and so on. It is a different presentation to the one we received a year ago and there have been positive steps forward. It would be remiss of the committee not to acknowledge that. There are issues which we have heard raised today but, in my view, very clear steps have been taken to improve this and to address a problem the Department sometimes was reluctant to address or of which it perhaps did not see the scale. I know we might disagree on that but I acknowledge that the Department has taken positive steps. I thank our witnesses, Ms Dowling, Mr. Duggan, Ms Gordon and Mr. Duff for their presentation and for the direct and forthright manner in which they answered questions.