Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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I thank Dr. Lynch for his opening statement, as well as the Comptroller and Auditor General. I welcome the witnesses to the Committee of Public Accounts. I do not think I have seen so many from a Department in a few months. The role of the guardian ad litemservice, GALS, is extremely serious. It is a pivotal role for all of the 6,000 children currently in State care.

I wish to say at the outset that the Law Society made a submission and from Dr. Lynch's opening statement, it seems he has taken cognisance of it. The submission was made in November 2015. I am a member of the Law Society family and child law committee and I note that in the interest of transparency.

The fact that the witness has taken this matter seriously is very much something the Committee for Public Accounts welcomes. It defies all logic that this has gone under the radar for such a significant amount of time. I appreciate that Tusla only took over from the HSE in 2014. However, we must look at the amount of money involved, for example, for 65 guardians in 2014 - a figure corrected by the Comptroller and Auditor General - it worked out at about €140,000 per annum per guardian for about 1,000 hours. From my reading of it, it is two and a half times the equivalent in Northern Ireland and the UK in terms of salary. I know that will be addressed, but in terms of the oversight of the cost, how did this situation arise and why was there no monitoring or regulation of it? There was nothing in terms of the complaints structure. How did this happen?