Mr. Jim Gibson:

We do interact with other agencies through email, but we had a standard process for dealing with Garda formal notifications of concern of neglect or abuse. This is about modernising that process. I do not want to speak about another State agency. I accept what the Deputy has said, and agree that we need to modernise. We have made one big step in that regard with our integrated childcare system. If we get a referral or mandated report through the new portal it automatically drops down to the region and area where the report originated. We had three members of staff working in our IT department until recently. We did not even have a director of ICT until six months ago. We are now building that capacity. This is about modernisation, and being able to track information and communication between staff and between our agency and other agencies. We have to deal with it.

The connection with the Garda PULSE system is possible, but there are some problems that have to be resolved from an IT, technical and information - data protection - perspective. It will happen, but it will take time. We are now using smart equipment, and the level of change we have seen has been significant for an agency that had many different types of databases in 32 areas. Those 32 areas shrunk to 17 areas when Tusla was established, which was a significant challenge for the agency. On 9 July every functional area in Tusla will be connected, which will ensure stronger oversight. That system allows me, as a manager of a social work team, to look at all of the work going on in that team by all of the social workers.

One of the issues mentioned by HIQA in its report was that we were quite slow to identify poor practice or concern about poor practice. I am the team leader and I, the principal or the CEO, if he or she wishes, can take that helicopter-like overview of the system. It can be clearly seen where someone is not recording things, and records which do not show good practice or incidents where a child-centred approach is not taken can easily be identified. That has really modernised matters for us. We are on a roll in terms of modernisation, and as one of the Deputies has said, we are aware that we are dealing with legacy issues. The modernisation of the system was a huge legacy issue for us. We are modernising now. We only give laptops to professional people now.

We do not give them desktops because they are mobile. We also supplement that with smartphones. They are connected to their system now, wherever they are. That is a huge thing. The next piece is the direct work with children. Our director is looking at apps that directly engage with children. Children do not want to sit and talk to somebody. They want a mechanism. On the laptop, we will have apps to do direct work with children. We are mid-stream in this modernisation and we are going in the right direction.

I email lots of people across the country in different agencies in my role as chief operations officer. The traditional communication of Garda notifications was by letter and still is but now we are seeing them coming through in our portal. I think in the last report, there were over 300 Garda-mandated reports that had come through the portal. We can clarify the figures and give them to the committee. They are showing that the modernisation is occurring.