Mr. Cormac Quinlan:

As I said, there are two processes. There is the review of section 3, which is ongoing with the Department of Justice and Equality, and the review of the Child Care Act is ongoing as well. We are feeding into that. There has been proactive engagement, but I recognise the Chairman's concern. We have recognised it for a long time. We have advocated very strongly for change in this regard. It is not completely within our control or remit but we will continue with it. In line with the HIQA investigation, we are revising our procedure to make it as effective, I hope, as it can be within that context. Mr. Gibson has spoken about the establishment of dedicated teams to do this work, and I hope this will increase the response rate and quality of that response in this space.

Without a shadow of doubt, we will continue to be legally challenged in the space and that will continue to present challenges for us. As I said previously when before the committee, there are cases when we are basically asked to facilitate semi-judicial processes where a victim may be cross-examined by an alleged perpetrator in a case. That is not something that an agency whose sole responsibility is protecting children should be involved with. It is the space in which we have been placed and it needs further involvement across the sector to address the matter.