John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I received that document today and I had an opportunity to read parts of it. It is very interesting, but I put my hand up and admit that this is my first time to go into this topic in a serious, meaningful way in terms of the research. However, I like how accessible the issues paper is.

I have two questions. I note one of the issues in the paper is the values and principles underpinning adult safeguarding and what the practices in Ireland are currently. Then it looks at Wales, Scotland and England in the UK for comparison. I have not had a chance to read through that. Perhaps the witness could give a small potpourri of the differences there are, positive or negative.

My second point is about what has happened in the past year. Obviously, with the Covid-19 pandemic the State and citizens would have seen themselves as making an enormous effort to protect the most vulnerable in society, probably from the point of view of being medically challenged and medically vulnerable. How do the witnesses think those adults, who would have had other vulnerabilities which would have been awfully exposed in the last year and continue to be exposed, would have coped or dealt with that, or what lessons, given such a unique context, have been witnessed or learned from that?

They are my two questions.