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

Mr. Fred McBride:

In terms of the set salary through a national provider, I would absolutely agree with that. We currently have no powers to monitor performance and the quality of that. That is not within our remit. Under the new proposals, that would come under the remit of a national provider. The notion of Tusla bringing proceedings to court, a guardian ad litembeing appointed by the court and then somehow Tusla monitoring that performance is not a system that would be sustainable. It would not make sense, I think.