Ms Suzanne Connolly:

I will talk a little about our involvement with the new agency. We are to meet Mr. Gordon Jeyes and his team tomorrow to talk about service planning and the budget in that context. The new agency presents a fantastic opportunity to improve circumstances for vulnerable children and their parents. The framework is very good. The challenge is that there is no detailed implementation plan. There is a real danger that the focus will be on outputs rather than outcomes. I am really quite worried about that. It is important that there be effective leadership within the system, in addition to real tenacity. It is a question of changing culture and mindsets. The system has been under pressure for several years and it is quite bombarded. If that is accepted and the work is done, there will be a real possibility. If there is denial, there will be no change at all. This is a key time.

One of our negotiating challenges is that, since there is such emphasis on child protection, understandably, there will be real pressure on Barnardos to do that type of work when, in fact, it is really important that it be involved in early intervention and prevention with vulnerable families, who often self-refer. Self-referral is the best way to work with families because they want to work with one. We are based in the heart of communities. We are in Moyross, Southill and Ballybeg and are really accessible. This contrasts with circumstances in which one might have to get a bus when there is no good local transport infrastructure.

I am thankful for the positive comment on Athlone. Approximately two years ago, we had to fight really strongly to hold onto that project. At the time, the HSE wanted to close it as a way of cutting costs. It was really difficult to have an outcome-based discussion on it. The officials were just thinking about saving money and suggested that the closure of the project was the way to achieve that, irrespective of the fact that they could acknowledge that we were delivering outcomes for children. We were able to fight and some people within the system did listen, but it was really quite a hard battle.

The other point to bear in mind in the context of the new area-based sites is that one should be working within existing systems in so far as that is possible. That is a way of changing. What I really like about the young Ballymun model is that those concerned work with public health nurses and schools. This makes a big difference because, if there is not as much funding available in the future the culture will have changed and people will be working better together. This is very important.

To echo what Mr. Toby Wolfe was asking for, I hope there will be a very transparent system and criteria according to which communities can apply. Headstrong is a very good example. It has quite clear criteria determining how a community can be a Headstrong community. If we did something similar in regard to the area-based partnerships, it would be very transparent and, I hope, very effective.

The importance of inter-agency working is often talked about. We all know it is really hard. It can be done. A transparent system that actually asks communities to provide evidence on how they will work better together would be really effective.