Dr. Karen McAuley:

I will start and I will hand over to my colleague, Ms Ward, in due course.

When we say that we feel the general scheme is lacking in sufficient vision and ambition, we came to this review process as an organisation with high aspirations for what it might achieve on the basis that it was the first time in 30 years that the Child Care Act was being subject to review, albeit that amendments had been made in the interim, on the basis that the child and families the Act engages and interacts with or provides for are among the most vulnerable in the State, in some cases, and that what the Act provides for in some circumstances is a high level of intervention by the State in children and families' lives up to and including taking children into its care. With all of that in mind, our hope was and is that the revised Act will provide a long-term view and will not be in any way unduly couched in the present tense but also that it demonstrates a confidence in the State's capacity to succeed with and for children and families because we think that is crucial.

I will give one example, if I may. I appreciate time is tight. One of the heads of Bill that we feel is illustrative of a lack of ambition and a lack of vision is the duty of relevant bodies to co-operate under head 10. This was an issue that we raised from the beginning of the review process in our first written submission to the Department. It is on the basis of some very serious cases that we have dealt with - some of the committee members will be familiar with Molly's case - that amplified and highlighted the very serious adverse consequences that a failure of different State bodies to co-operate and work together in the interests of the child can have on that child. Our feeling here is that what is provided for is timid and that it needs to go much further. We welcome that there is a proposal to establish a duty to co-operate and we appreciate that there may be merit in clarifying that the relevant bodies may co-operate; in other words, they are permitted to work together given the concerns that might be there among some bodies about doing so, particularly around information sharing, but we feel the duty needs to be strengthened. It is an issue that we raised from the beginning as a major concern, and others have done so as well. It is also one that the Department acknowledged in its 2020 consultation paper as one of the biggest challenges to securing good outcomes for children. We feel it needs to be stronger, that the duty should be they "shall" co-operate, that the discretion is taken out of it and that it reaches beyond information sharing. There is reference to assistance I think, but it is not clear what that assistance is.

The committee will be doing its own research. It would be worth looking in the Irish context at the Policing, Security and Community Safety Bill 2023. There is a duty to co-operate there, which we believe demonstrates more confidence than the provisions here. It is also worth looking at the general scheme of the health information Bill as well because it takes a different approach. Crucially, what it does is say that we will legislate for bodies to share information - in a different context and the specifics are different - because we believe a legislative framework needs to underpin the required change process otherwise the suboptimal outcomes that are occurring will continue whereas this general scheme strikes us as taking a different tack, which is waiting for a culture, organisational attitudes and practises to change before bringing forward legislation. We do not believe that children can wait for that change to occur. We feel it needs to be much stronger.

By way of one additional example of lack of ambition or lack of vision, we are really disappointed that unaccompanied minors are not provided for explicitly in this general scheme and we think that needs to be revisited. There is a view that a child is a child, unaccompanied minors are children, we treat them as children and, therefore, their needs and circumstances will be captured, but unaccompanied minors are in a very vulnerable position and in very particular circumstances. Something the 2020 consultation paper proposed when it was thought unaccompanied minors would be included was that the status of a child as an unaccompanied minor itself would be enough to enable him or her to go into care and that is not addressed through this general scheme.

I apologies; I appreciate that was a little long. I will hand over to my colleague, Ms Ward, on some of the other issues.