Mr. Bernard O'Regan:

We have been considering the High Court judgment over the past week or ten days since it was issued. Another case, which is before the Court of Appeal, will be particularly relevant to this issue. The judgment in that case is imminent and we will be awaiting it. We anticipate that it will be available to us in the next couple of weeks. It will be critical to consider that as well.

With regard to the process, we have issued some guidance to the system indicating every child is entitled to apply for an assessment of need where that assessment of need is agreed with the parents to be conducted in the format that would have pertained previously. It has been agreed that this is what should be progressed. If a family elects on a non-statutory basis to avail of the existing preliminary team assessment, PTA, this would still be available to them as a means of accessing services based on need, but it does not take away from or replace the assessment of need.

We are in the process of planning to convene some workshops with key stakeholders.

That would involve the professional bodies, staff working in services and families that have been involved coming together to work with us to develop a model of conducting assessments of need in a manner that protects to the greatest degree possible the delivery of services and interventions. We do not want to create a system wherein all of the resources are directed towards meeting legal obligations to the detriment of services. For families, the assessment of need is about the services that their children need, so we do not want to emphasise one to the detriment of the other. We recognise that how we progress this will benefit from having the involvement of some key stakeholders.

We are working to a fairly tight timeframe. Once the Court of Appeal judgment is available to us and we have had a chance to consider it, we will need to be in a position quickly thereafter to put in place a mechanism for assessments and interventions in a way that gives us confidence going forward.