Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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I confirm I am not happy about Brexit so that is on the record. I take Deputy Costello's point and we will have a small piece in the Brexit omnibus Bill about the national childcare scheme and its application for British citizens living here post Brexit. The Deputy raised this point with me previously and I will come back to him about it if that is okay.

At our last meeting, the Deputy raised the point about the indicators. It is a fair point. Obviously, it is not something we can change. These are the figures and metrics that were used for 2019 and 2020. Going forward, however, I am definitely open to looking at a wider set. Much of that material is there. I recently received from Tusla its annual review of the adequacy of childcare and family support services for 2019. This is an overall statistical and progress-based analysis Tusla must provide to the Minister each year. It has a nice little infographic setting out various metrics, including one the Deputy noted, which says 75% of 18- to 20-year-olds in receipt of aftercare services were in education or accredited training. It breaks it down in those steps. The Deputy is correct and that information is there. Perhaps, part of what we need to do when we present these figures is to show the wider range of information on progress that has been made.

Another detail is that the number of cases requiring social workers, which this committee will have looked at closely in the last Oireachtas, is down significantly. Some of this might concern the presentation of information but I take the Deputy's point on making sure the outcomes we look at are based on individual impacts and benefits for children and young people. He is right and we are happy to engage further on what we measure and how we present that material.

I agree with the Deputy on the NCCIS. It is a beneficial system and one we should use to its full potential. It is still being developed and is substantially complete. There is, however, still work to be done and some of the significant additional allocation to Tusla this year will go to continuing work on the development of the NCCIS.

I do not have a direct timeframe on when the successor strategy to BOBF will be ready but my Department is already beginning the process of work of replacing it. As I said previously, we will look at it in the context of the issue of child poverty and setting ambitious figures on the reduction of child poverty. We wanted to wait until the new equality section of the Department joined us and look at it in that context because there are synergies, particularly in areas such as direct provision and looking at some of the groups we address like LGBTI+ and the Traveller and Roma communities. Having the equality section in my Department will bring about real synergies as regards how we tackle children and young people with particular vulnerabilities in the context of the successor strategy.