Ciara Conway (Waterford, Labour)
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I thank Mr. Jeyes for his presentation and welcome everybody here this morning.
I have a number of questions on guardians ad litem, or GALs. Mr. Jeyes mentioned in his presentation that GALs instruct solicitors and barristers. I seek clarification on whether Tusla ends up paying those bills.
We have had discussions here before on reforming the GAL system and looked at other models of practice. The matter has also come up from time to time in the Chamber. When child protection services were hosted in the HSE - Deputies here will be familiar with the matter - when one met one's local area manager it was a case of closing long-term beds in a community hospital versus paying the legal bills. With the establishment of the new agency, such choices no longer exist for community care local representatives. However, a balance must be struck in terms of vindication of a child's rights and who is paying for it. Who are the guardians ad litem? Are they professionally qualified? Why do they need additional legal support? The legal costs are astronomical. What purpose do they serve? If we are taking away vital services for vulnerable children just to pay legal costs then we must tackle the issue.
Where are we in terms of inspections of preschools following the "Prime Time" exposé? We got figures here before the summer demonstrating that people were still not in post or there was a shortage of inspectors. HIQA has a small number of inspectors in comparison with Tusla's inspectors for preschool services. How efficiently are inspection resources being used?

There are large areas that are not getting the same level of inspection as others and the children are losing out.

I ask Mr. Jeyes to talk about the risk with the 9,000 cases that are awaiting allocation. What kinds of cases are involved? Are they high risk or low risk? Have they been assessed in any way? I am concerned that if we have 9,000 people on a waiting list, what kind of a list are talking about? Where, geographically, are these cases? Where are the bottlenecks? In what geographical areas are the resources lacking? I have a sense that some parts of the country may not be under as much pressure as other parts, given the population spread throughout the country.