Ms Kate Duggan:

I will give the Senator a high-level overview and then, if she wants, some more detail around the actual age assessment process. Obviously, referrals come to us from immigration officials where they believe a child should to be referred to Tusla because they have a concern that he or she is a minor. They come to us and we undertake our eligibility protocol for access to childcare services to inform his or her care planning.

There have been 220 young people referred to us in the year to date and 72 of those young people were from Ukraine. As of Sunday night, we had 256 young people in the care of or being accommodated by Tusla. Certainly, with the increase in the numbers over the past number of months, we have worked with the IPO. We have collaborated with the IPO, with the Children's Rights Alliance and with the NGO sector, such as the Jesuit refugee council, on our eligibility assessment and our eligibility for childcare services. We have refined that this year. That is now implemented. Our staff have been trained.

The three key principles that we have brought into that include the benefit-of-doubt principle in terms of minors but I want to flag for the committee that there is also a risk to that of adults being placed with minors. We are very aware of the risk of minors being placed in adult services, which is not something we want, but equally, we have a risk of adults being placed in with minors and there is the risk attached to that. We certainly mitigate that, in the case of young people where there is concern about their age and where we are not fully assured about their age, through us placing them in temporary accommodation arrangements away from minors.

The second change to that is the right to advocacy. We now are working with the Youth Advocacy Project, YAP, in terms of the right to advocacy for all young people who are undergoing the eligibility assessment. The third is that we now have a review panel. This is where we have individuals who are separate to our assessment team. Where there is a review, the young person can appeal that decision to an external panel.

However, where we believe, through our detailed assessment, the individual not to be a minor, he or she is then referred back to the immigration officials.