John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I have a question arising from the questions of Deputies Ellis and McGrath. It is about the other remit of Tusla in its educational welfare support office. Ms Joyce said that members of the community are increasingly completing second level education. We had Tusla's educational welfare support office before the committee very early in the lifetime of the committee and one of the points its representatives made was that one of the challenges they found in working with the community in general was that they could not work with children over the age of 16 because the legislation only permitted them to work with children up to the age of 16. I ask for a general observation on Tusla's performance in that area. Is this one of the reasons more children are completing secondary education? Would it be beneficial to increase the age to which Tusla is permitted to work with children to 18?