Ms Nuala Ward:

I will go through these questions in turn. The vulnerability piece is interesting. First and foremost, it is important to acknowledge that these children are living with their parents. That is the big protective factor for many them. While their living conditions may not be conducive to a good family life, they are living with their parents. The Child and Family Agency recognised that this is the first and foremost safeguard for them. However, we found that it failed to recognise that these are children who may have gone through trauma, for instance, in the journey they took to get to Ireland or that they have arrived in the new country that is unknown to them. There are unknown systems, and a language that they may not know either. All of that creates the vulnerabilities were talking about. As I am sure the Chair knows, under the EU directive and under our own Irish regulations there is an obligation on the State to assess people, minors in particular, about their vulnerability. We are all different. Children could land into this country who may have special educational needs, mental health difficulties or trauma because of what they have gone through. We are obliged to assess that vulnerability and then provide services to meet those needs and, hopefully, help them through that journey. In the debate about vulnerability, that is what we were trying to establish. We appreciate that the agency now recognises that these children have got particular vulnerabilities that as a State we must try to meet.

As for our concerns about families moving across mid-assessments, I am happy to say that Tusla has fully accepted that it is going to take a sample audit to make sure that no child has fallen through the cracks. A big gap we found through this investigation was that IPAS assured us that there was a seconded social worker that led the child and family services unit within IPAS. That was a critical safeguard for that service to be assured of how referrals managed and to guide central managers about concerns. However, that post was vacant for over a year. IPAS itself was really concerned about that. We were equally concerned. It was trying to emphasise the importance of everybody working together to meet the needs of these children.

Again, what we wanted was a protocol in order that all these children are in communities. If Tusla and IPAS work together in local areas at an early stage they can build services through the children and young people's services committees, CYPSCs, which are the local childcare committees, to meet the needs of these children and help to integrate them into the community. Those are some of the critical recommendations we have made and have been accepted by both parties.

I think I covered all those questions, but please tell me if I did not.