Mr. Raymond Byrne:

On behalf of the commission, this gives me an opportunity to put on the record our thanks to Anne O'Donnell in the Department of Children and Youth Affairs who facilitated the two workshops we held. That was incredibly important for a number of reasons. The structure of the workshops was very well facilitated for us. The experience of the Department in that regard was most helpful.

It also allows me to say that Comhairle na nÓg played a huge part in the selection process so we had that great strength in the way in which we approached those two sessions. The group was representative from the entire State. They all came to the Ashling Hotel in Dublin and they were facilitated very strongly. The backing we had from the Department was incredibly important in that regard. The Department was also very helpful around the child protection issues that would have been necessary to look at. A child psychologist was available on both of the days to ensure, if any issue arose that required assistance and intervention, that help was available. The assistance we got from the Department was invaluable.

The process itself was very well done through having people around the table. As Mr. Justice Quirke has said we were really onlookers. We went around observing the discussions at the different tables and the Post-it notes that were going up on screen. As Professor O'Connell has said, out of that we had a great report written by Sandra Roe on the two day sessions. This report indicated, especially from the point of view of young people, that they were extremely concerned to ensure there was an effective take-down process in place. That was one of the reasons we emphasised the need for a statutory arrangement in which take-down procedures could be done in a very effective and efficient way without going to court. This aspect came out very strongly from the sessions we had on the two days.