Ms Lara Hynes:

Interagency working is a huge challenge. To be honest, that is the case in other countries aside from Ireland. It is a very tricky issue.

The Department recognises there are a number of provisions in the Act to promote interagency working. However, that is only the first step. Implementation is going to be absolutely crucial. It is important to point out that we have a number of interacting provisions that are meant to support each other. We have a duty to co-operate but we also have the assistance to be provided to the court. The court can look for other agencies to be brought into childcare proceedings if the child, for example, has significant mental health difficulties or perhaps the parents may have difficulties. That is significant.

In regard to how we make this real, we are looking to put the children and young people services committees providing for better local co-ordination on a statutory basis. There is a regulation-making power there for the Minister to direct how those operate. We will mandate that certain organisations have representatives at those on the children and young people services committees, CYPSCs. We are also setting up a national oversight group, the national advisory committee, which is going to have an annual programme of work given to it by our Minister. It will be an interdepartmental group. The intent is that this will be a problem-solving committee and that the Minister will effectively ask it to provide solutions for interagency collaboration problems within that timeframe of a year. For example, the Ombudsman for Children set up a round table of a number of different agencies and Departments to look into the issue of teenagers at risk. Tusla is looking after a large number of them. We have a growing number of teenagers who have these very complex problems, mental health problems, disability, criminality and cases such as the grooming we spoke about.

We propose to do something in the immediate term with that in that we plan to bring that work forward with the Ombudsman for Children to look at what we can do before the Bill is enacted. However, once the Bill is enacted, we would very much see the national childcare advisory committee as the forum for that type of problem to be tabled. It will be tabled with this interdepartmental group with senior level representation. The committee will be asked to come up with recommendations on how to tackle those problems. The Ombudsman for Children will examine and test those recommendations to see whether they are robust enough. Then they will be set out in an annual report. There is no easy way to tackle interagency collaboration co-ordination problems. They exist in many different places in respect of many different problems facing children and young people. We have to create a programme of work where we work through all the different problems together. We see those different parts and provisions in the Act as providing the structure and framework to allow us to do that going forward.