Dr. Niall Muldoon:

I will take that on board. We have had complaints about school transport and we are very much aware of the difficulties. We have a focus on it to try to find the best way for us to intervene. While it has an impact on rural children, it also impacts on children with special needs going to the right school. We are very much aware of such scenarios and it is a very difficult area in which to make a difference, given that it has such a long-term impact. I will ask Ms Nuala Ward to let Deputy Anne Rabbitte know how many school transport complaints we have received and how we have dealt with them. It comes across our desk on a regular basis and I will raise it with the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Bruton. I have requested a meeting with him and it will be on the agenda.

Regarding after care, there are certain things we know from the beginning of a child's life.

If a child has a severe physical or intellectual disability, the State will have to intervene throughout his or her lifetime. This can be planned, prepared and budgeted for. After care is like this. A child who has been in care for two or three years and who is approaching his or her 18th birthday will need support when he or she leaves care. However, there seems to be a reluctance to co-operate and make these things happen. A child moving from the child service to the adult service can cross areas such as mental health, children in care and disability. The adult services seem to be slow to take on board that the child is ready to move. It is all about the adults.

We need to move to a child's best interests forum, with the child's best interests being the focus for public servants so it is very clear, when a child is about to graduate into the adult world, that the funding, resources and plans need to be in place. The statutory obligation to make a plan should be followed by the statutory resources. It should be automatic. It is common sense. No child should receive a plan and then be told it may not be followed up. It would be totally contrary to the best interests of the child. It is something we can fix. It must be considered.

There is a very clear answer to many of the problems. We know children are in care and we know what happens when we do not support them when they leave. They end up in mental health services, in homeless situations, occupying beds in psychiatric hospitals and involved in crime. Some also manage alone. There are positive stories. However, we know they could manage much better if support were put in place. It is clear. We can see it coming, we can work towards it and we can fix it. In stressful economic times, there were restraints. However, as we plan for the future, and to have a more balanced economy, we can plan for such issues.

Similarly, when economic stress occurred, our children lost a major valuable resource in high-quality counsellors, and we need to put them back in place. My background is in psychology and I have worked in the mental health area for a long time. Since I started, I have worked closely with the Irish Primary Principals Network, the National Association of Deputy Principals and Principals, and the Teaching Council to work on a well-being culture in schools. We aim to create an atmosphere in which children and teachers from primary through to post-primary have the ability to speak about their emotional lives and feel supported when they feel under stress. We are trying to promote this so the generations to come will not find things as difficult and, while they will not necessarily need a counsellor, will know the safety net is there. We will have created the language that allows them to say they have a problem and know the right thing to do is to tell somebody they trust and fix it. This is opposed to the older generation - I put my hands up here - who were told to stay quiet and not to let anybody see they had a weakness.

We are trying to change the culture. Counsellors are a valuable part of it. In Northern Ireland, every school has an independent counsellor available to it close to the school but off site, which avoids the possible stigma people can associate with an in-school counsellor. It would be a positive step forward if we could make such things happen. We also need to make our mental health services available when a person comes forward, and we will.

I am very much aware that I have narrowed down to three focal points. Within disability, I am engaging with the various sectors to try to finalise the best actions I can take over the next two to three years. I am not the expert. The area is so broad that I am engaging with all. I am having a meeting later with various sectors and NGOs on the disability service and I will highlight exactly what I need to do and listen to them, see what they feel is needed, what legislation is involved, what actions are best suited and where awareness needs to be raised. I am happy to link with them and decide my strategy from there. It will allow me to bring it to the Minister of State, Deputy Finian McGrath, when I meet him.

Many areas relate to severe disability. I gave the example of the adaptation of a car or housing. When a child is severely disabled, we know we will have to do these things.

It makes sense to plan for it in the budget. However, it always seems to be totally out of the blue. "Why are you asking for that?" is the question asked. The parents, particularly in foster care situations, should be given extra support, as opposed to less support.

All members have mentioned children in direct provision. That is very strong on our agenda. From the very first interview I did, direct provision was one of the things I was very much highlighting. I am delighted that the Minister, Deputy Fitzgerald, agreed in principle to allow us to take on the remit of direct provision. We are currently in negotiations to finalise the legal situation to make that happen. Ms Ward and I have visited direct provision centres. We know exactly the difficulties faced by the children in there. For almost 17 years children on our island have not had access to our office, which is a severe point of discrimination. We hope that will end very soon. The plan is for it to end in the next couple of moths, once we finalise the legislative mechanism to make that happen. That will allow us then to contribute positively to what RIA can do and to guide the centres. We will not be involved in any of the final decisions on asylum-seekers. We will stay away from that. However, the administration of the services and the rights of the children while they are in direct provision will be a strong piece of work, from our point of view.

I ask Dr. Karen McAuley to speak about children afraid to speak up. Within the objectives we have many plans to work with children as part of the region. To answer one of Deputy Ó Laoghaire's questions, we have reached the staffing complement that we had. We have had the same complement for about ten years. I have now applied for the estimates for an ambitious increase in staffing to follow through on this objective. I believe we need more staff because much of the work we want to do is outreach. We want to get out of the office, get down to the country, meet children and hear their voices in a much more active way, whereas at the moment our intake is through children coming to our office, which obviously limits the long-distance situation.