Mr. Jim Gibson:

It is beneficial to reflect on where we came from. For example, I worked in the service at different levels - social worker, team leader, principal social worker, child care manager and area manager. Some areas had five points of referral and six people trying to pick up work going back ten or 15 years. Mr. McBride has outlined the service delivery framework, under which it is clear that we have dedicated, specialist teams to receive, review and make professional decisions on matters that are referred to our agency.

There is an interesting number. We are known within communities and counties and everything is referred to us. Some 60% of our referrals are about families in crisis or in need of help. Deputy Neville mentioned prevention and early intervention. We deal with those cases and have developed good processes and service interventions across Ireland that are available to such families. We are connected in the communities. As an agency, we take a lead in the children and young people's services committees, CYPSCs, which include city and county child care committees. We are engaged in collaborative work and have produced good material on prevention, partnership and family support, which assists 60% of those families that are referred to Tusla to get an intervention in a timely and proportionate way.

The methodology attached to the relationship between the child protection service and the family support service has been worked up well. In one area, for example, there were 300 plus referrals from the child protection intake team to the prevention and family support team. Of those referrals that went out to families that required a family support service, only 7% were returned to the child protection system. That is a good indicator that the professionals were getting it right in their initial screenings and assessments. With good standard operating procedures between those two services, we ensure that such welfare-type family support cases are handled. This creates more time and space for the intake assessment team to examine more serious child protection cases and take corrective action.

We have a robust and good child protection notification system. Case conferences on child protection issues are held throughout the country. Some welfare issues do not arise out of wilful neglect by parents, but because parents have mental health problems, issues with drugs, etc. Our staff are trained to work with those parents through a difficult process so that there can be changes within their families and children can remain in their families and communities.

It is important to stress that these are the things that we have achieved since our establishment. We have set up specialist teams across the country and are continuing with that innovation.