Dr. Fergal Lynch:

I thank the Committee of Public Accounts for this opportunity to deal with the guardian ad litemservice, as examined by the Comptroller and Auditor General in Chapter 11 of his 2015 report. I am accompanied by my colleagues from the Department of Children and Youth Affairs: Ms Éimear Fisher, who is an assistant secretary; Ms Lara Hynes, who is a principal officer; and Ms Doreen Burke, who is an assistant principal officer. The officials from Tusla have been introduced.

Total expenditure on guardian ad litemservices by Tusla, the Child and Family Agency, was €16.5 million in 2014, €14.1 million in 2015 and €15.2 million in 2016. The 2016 figure is Tusla’s latest estimate and will be updated as soon as figures for the year have been finalised. Within these total figures, spending on guardian ad litemcosts, including fees and travel, fell from €9.1 million in 2014 to €8.2 million in both 2015 and 2016. Expenditure by Tusla on legal fees, comprising those of solicitors and barristers, fell from €7.4 million in 2014 to €5.9 million in 2015 before increasing to an estimated €7 million in 2016. The Department of Children and Youth Affairs has acknowledged that the present arrangements for guardian ad litemservices are in need of significant reform. Despite its importance to vulnerable children and young people, this an ad hocservice that lacks an appropriate system of organisation and governance. Neither the role and functions of guardians ad litemnor the circumstances in which they should be appointed to individual cases is defined. The service is essentially led by demand and determined by the decision of the courts on whether to assign a guardian ad litem.

From a financial perspective, Tusla has endeavoured to control spending through a series of reasonableness checks and retrospective reviews. As noted in the Comptroller and Auditor General's report, this has produced savings, most notably in relation to legal costs. An analysis of legal invoices shows that Tusla achieved negotiated savings of between €1.8 million and €1.9 million under this heading in both 2015 and 2016. The Department of Children and Youth Affairs and Tusla are committed to implementing the recommendations made by the Comptroller and Auditor General in his recent report. Specifically, we are focusing on improving the data collection systems from which performance metrics such as average cost per case, average case load per guardian ad litemand average costs per service type can be accurately generated. These metrics will build on the analyses already carried out by Tusla and will help with the identification of cases with higher than average costs that need to be pursued further. As these are initial measures, they will be advanced as part of a much wider programme of fundamental reform of the guardian ad litemsystem.

I am pleased to inform the committee that on 17 January last, the Government approved the draft heads and general scheme of a Bill to bring this reform about. The heads of the Bill will be published shortly by the Minister and will be submitted immediately to the Joint Committee on Children and Youth Affairs for pre-legislative scrutiny. Subject to the outcome of this process, it is hoped to publish the text of a Bill as soon as possible in the second half of this year. The proposed legislation provides for a clear structure of accountability through a nationally managed and delivered guardian ad litemservice, for a system in which the role, functions, qualifications and appointment criteria of guardians ad litemare specified in law, for the regulation of the assignment of legal representation for guardians ad litemand of the fees payable for legal services and for the monitoring of the performance of guardian ad litemservices to ensure quality and cost-effectiveness. Most importantly, the reformed guardian ad litemservice must meet the needs of the children and young people for whom it is intended. The key functions of guardians ad litemare to ascertain the views of children who are the subject of care proceedings, to advise the court of these views and to give their own considered views on what is in the child's best interests.

The draft legislation provides for a single national provider of guardian ad litemservices, separate from Tusla, to be appointed by public procurement. The national service provider will be responsible for operating a cost-effective, well-managed and high-quality service in the best interests of children and young people and for monitoring and reporting on the performance of the service provided to the courts by guardians ad litem. The legislation will set minimum qualifications for the appointment of people acting as guardians ad litem. To ensure the voices of children are heard in court proceedings, there will be a legal presumption in favour of the appointment of guardians ad litemand the court will be required to give reasons for declining to appoint a guardian ad litem. The national service provider will have its own inhouse legal support for guardians ad litem, thereby minimising the need to appoint external legal services. However, there will be provision for a panel of solicitors and a panel of barristers from which the national service provider can draw where external legal services are required. The legislation provides for the establishment of standardised fees for these legal representatives.

The new legislation is designed to address the acknowledged deficiencies in the current guardian ad litemservice. The Department will work intensively to implement it as soon as the Bill can be finalised and enacted. The Department will carry out a number of steps in parallel with the work on the Bill, including the preparation of a request for tender documentation for the procurement of a national service provider. The new service will be evaluated over time. Other options can then be examined as appropriate, including for example the question of establishing it within the existing family courts system, establishing it as a separate public body or placing it within existing statutory structures.

It is vital that we put a well-organised national system of guardian ad litemservices in place as soon as possible. The Department is committed to achieving this.