Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

A group, chaired by my Department, has been working on that over the past year. It is linking in with the judicial system, the court structures and various representative groups, looking at best practice in other jurisdictions. It is taking that information that we are developing now, the overall plan and the strategy itself. Once we have it published, we will be able to go into it in greater detail. However, I reassure the Senator that the group has been meeting for approximately a year and has had engagements with different groups, including children because much of the time children are involved in these cases. We have tried to take in different perspectives - those who are in the system, those in the legal profession and also those outside it - and try to take it away somewhat from a legal setting.

Obviously, the hubs themselves could be extremely important where we have not just the courtroom but we have these other types of supports available to people. I was recently in Dolphin House which has that type of support there, including the facility for mediation in the same building as the courtroom. It is about ensuring that people are aware it is there, know what it can do and how it can help them. We need to ensure those supports are available to people in the same place at the same time. That is where the signpost is for any other type of support they might need.