Mr. Fred McBride:

If I can begin on the Chairman's question about legacy issues, I suppose the straight answer is "Yes". We have inherited, as I alluded to earlier, a number of different systems and processes in 17 areas which have led to difficulties. We have endeavoured to put together a standardised - Mr. Gibson referred to it - service delivery framework with dedicated intact points, which picks up Deputy Ó Laoghaire's question. There would have been multiple intake points previously. We have also endeavoured to put together a system for moving information from initial screening to initial assessment where that is necessary to ongoing allocation.

We are not yet fully confident to say that none of these issues pertains any longer. We are three years into a transformation programme. We think we have made significant progress but we also believe there is still some progress to make.

The issue of letting people against whom an allegation may have been made know that this information has been given to us is very much part of fair and due process. We should be letting them know as quickly as possible. That does not always happen when we are dealing with unallocated cases.

On another question about timescale, there is no specific timeframe. We should be trying to deal with these pieces of information as quickly as we possibly can and letting people know that we have information about them. That should be the ideal standard.