Dr. Niall Muldoon:

Maybe I will start with the special care. The Deputy is right there is a cry for help there. The system is bulging. It is not capable. I think there are 26 beds and only 14 open. Tusla has said there is nobody waiting at the moment but I would be very surprised if there were not children on the edge of special care and the edge of care. We see parents taking Tusla to court to bring their child into special care. There is something wrong with our system there where Tusla is then going to court to fight to not bring a child in. It is also going to court to say its statutory obligation is to bring children into care but it is going to ignore that if it does not have a bed. That seems like children are not at the centre of the thinking. We are spending money in the High Court as opposed to putting those beds in place. We also know special care is meant to be a three-month intensive therapeutic environment to get children turned around and moved out again with a maximum of three stays for a total of nine months. There are children there for two years, so for them therapeutic change has moved to institutionalisation. They have lost motivation. They wonder why they would move and why would they do anything, because they are not going to be moved anyway. We have no step-down. That whole system is something we need to start looking at to see whether we are investing in the right places pre and post special care.

If I move backwards, the Deputy is right it is a sad indictment that children are worried about the cost of living and housing. It is there and it is real but the adults are forgetting. They keep talking about it and the Government keeps talking about it as if it is not impacting children.

Deputy Farrelly talked about 100,000 children in poverty and 100,000 children being referred to Tusla. They are real people around our country. There are only 1.25 million children in Ireland. A big percentage of them are being impacted by all of these things. Mental health might not affect them but it is impacting friends of all of them. Children know their friends are anxious or concerned and cannot get into the primary care psychology services. There is a real awareness among children and that is why we have to listen them. That is why we have to do what they ask us to do.

The right to education workshops are a fantastic piece of work. It is a wonderful thing to be involved in. We simply ask the children whether they were in their own bedroom when they got out of bed that morning and whether they put on their school uniform, went downstairs and had breakfast. We ask whether they got a lift to school from their mother or father. Most of them will say "Yes" to a lot of that stuff. We tell them that before they even came to school they had a right to privacy, a family, a house, food and education. That starts their awareness growing. We ask whether there are children they know who do not have that. That is the sort of work we do and it raises people's awareness.

As regards the question on complaints and the other ones, I will pass over to Ms Ward.