Mr. Alan Tennyson:

They should be taken seriously. If harm is caused to a person, they should be taken seriously and they should have the opportunity for redress. All of us firmly believe that. If I can speak from a personal perspective, the need for behaviour support outstripped the availability of qualified people in the field a number of years ago. What happened was, we had an influx of people into the field who claimed that they were doing X, Y and Z but who were not qualified. That may be a reason for some of the reports of harm that are coming through now. We need to address that. Also, we had development of a policy that named PBS as being required and yet we did not have the necessary standards or the people who met those training requirements. People within section 38 and 39 organisations or the HSE did not know who to hire. They then put people into positions who may not have met the standards of supervised practise and training.