Ms Kate Duggan:

We spoke about this with our board. We are taking a huge amount of action in terms of the physical environment, training and induction. We have used close security personnel on-site in residential units and special care units and got the permission of HIQA to do that because of the violent nature of some of the young people attacking staff. We are now at the stage where - and this is where we talk about needing help – a lot of this is when young people are engaged in substance misuse and post-substance misuse, with mental health issues and struggling to get access to services. We see that the next phase has to be focused on the underlying cause of the aggression within the young people. That is what we talk about when meeting other State agencies. We are very happy to share the report we brought to the board last week demonstrating the actions we have taken. We have been nominated for a European award for the action the agency has taken to try to protect our staff. We obviously have a duty to protect our young people, but also to provide a safe place of work for our staff.