Ms Kate Duggan:

The common factor between both of these cases has been the Covid-19 lockdown. When we spoke with departmental officials and the Minister, the concern we had was that, where cases had been closed to Tusla and there had been concerns, those children were also not able to be in school or preschool and were not as visible within the community. We all agreed, and the Minister absolutely wanted to give assurances to all the State agencies, be those public health nursing services, Tusla services, schools, preschools or family resource centres. We have committed and want to undertake these well-being checks for approximately 42,000 children whose cases were closed to Tusla during the Covid-19 pandemic to make sure there are no concerns and that nobody slipped through the net during Covid-19.