Mr. Bernard Gloster:

Again, the answer is perhaps in the question. I will be honest: I had some concern about two years ago about the concept of recruiting separately into the education sector. I have come full circle on it. The reason I have is what I said in my opening statement. We are trying, we are making progress and I do not think we are doing a bad job, but the simple reality is that we are coming up short for too many children. Rather than seeing us as the HSE or the Department of the Minister, Deputy McEntee, as education, at the end of the day we are all public services, and if recruiting into education causes me a bit of hassle but actually does something for children, who am I to argue with it? We have not tried it so we should try it. That is my view. I do think it will be challenged because of the models of modern-day practice. I think there is still a high expectation of direct therapy versus family-centred therapy. I think there could be some challenges there, but my view now is that we should get on with it and let us see how it works.

On CORU, my colleague Robert Watt, the Secretary General of the Department of Health, took that up as a wider health issue and I think we might get to expedite that.

I am saddened to hear if there are people recruited on panels and they are working for us as agency staff because what most people do not know is that right through the recruitment pause or moratorium, a dreadful pay and numbers strategy and all those things I did, we never stopped recruiting in disability. That is why our numbers are as high as they are. In fact, I would say disability benefited because we were not recruiting in other places. However, I would be disappointed to hear if we have people in the pipeline and they are with us as agency staff. We should take that at face value, look at it and bottom it out. Overall, as regards the Deputy's point and his observation about children who have come from other jurisdictions or had a formal, professional intervention in their lives, whatever about us wanting to validate that, it should not take us too long. If a child has been in a treatment plan in another jurisdiction with qualified professionals of high standing, I do not see why we should say, "Go back to zero and, in the meantime, stop your whole plan." I would find that quite destructive. I am not a fan of and I am highly critical of our organisation because of the perfunctory letters. I think we add insult to injury, quite frankly, by writing back to people saying, "Sorry, we do not do that here." That is no way for a modern social care system to operate. The Deputy is quite right: disability being viewed through the lens of health is not helpful. A social care construct is required around it. It does not matter whether it is the Department of Social Protection, the school, the HSE or the local GAA club; there is an entire social construct around helping people to live lives to their full potential and of their own determination. Like I said, if that causes me a few headaches, is that not a good thing?