Ms Freda McKittrick:

If I may comment on special care, I appreciate this is very recent legislation, but what we see is a kind of misfit between what the legislation is designed to do and the experience of children in special care. First of all, it is extraordinarily difficult to get a child into special care and extraordinarily difficult to get a child out of special care. The legislation was designed around three-month periods that would be renewable up to three times, so they are designed to get the kids out as quickly as possible. What we find in practice is that that is not long enough for them. The average time is about nine months. There has been significant movement and an increase in the amount of therapeutic work being done with them in special care, and that is taking a lot longer than what the current legislation is actually delivering. I will let my colleagues in Tusla come in on this. The crisis in placements going in is a huge factor; the crisis in placements coming out is another huge factor. There are the community supports and the continuation of supports for young people coming out of special care. These are the children, along with the 58, who have those extraordinarily high needs. We are paying the price for previous recessions during which services were cut and families were not supported, and we now have a cohort of children with these very complex and very difficult needs. As Deputy Costello said, there is a question mark as to how the health services, in particular CAMHS, are supporting them as well. This really does need review, and I am glad to hear that the Department is reviewing it.

May I come back to one point Senator Ruane made, or is that out of turn?