Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 19 January 2017

Public Accounts Committee

Report of the Accounts of the Public Services 2015
Chapter 11 - Guardian Ad Litem Service

9:00 am

Dr. Fergal Lynch:

The data are improving - Mr. McBride may want to say more about this - and data collection has been improving, certainly over the course of last year, and will be into this year. Specifically, all legal fees are now recorded electronically on a system that Tusla operates. Half of the guardian ad litemrelated fees, the ones related to Barnardos, are now on that system as well.

Barnardos is now on that system as well. By the end of the second quarter of this year, all legal fees will be on this electronic system. That will collect much more detailed information and enable us to monitor and interrogate the costs to a much greater extent than has been possible previously.