Colette Kelleher (Independent)
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I want to summarise for my own benefit that the policy lead is currently sitting with the Department of Health, that the proposals being worked on are around a more health-focused form of adult safeguarding, that it is accepted that there is a wider societal issue but that the focus is on health initially, that mandatory reporting needs to be teased out and that mandatory reporting is neither good nor bad as it is a bit like the independent agency in that it is how it is done and that that is an outstanding issue that needs to be looked at a little bit further. I am a little bit alarmed at the timetable set out from 1993 to now for certain aspects of mandatory reporting or child protection legislation. I would be concerned that we taking that as a recommendation. Surely we recognise that there is urgency. The Department has identified that there are legislative gaps, that it is the lead Department, that it is going to be health focused and that there are issues like mandatory reporting, an area that needs to be further explored. Would the Department accept that there is an urgency in terms of people being harmed today?

I prefer the term "adult at risk of harm" rather than "vulnerable adult". Would the Department accept that given that 8,000 cases were reported to the HSE, and that 32,000 people over the age of 65 were mistreated last year, there is urgency around this and that we cannot really wait 24 years to see this put in place? I presume that was not what Ms Spillane was suggesting. I am interested in her sense of urgency and what kind of timetable there might be, given that there are some issues that need to be explored. The HSE has done much of the work, and I read the reviews Dr. Sarah Donnelly did. I do not think that needs to delay us because the work is there.