Dr. Niall Muldoon:

I will take the Deputy's last question and ask Ms Ward to answer some of the others. In essence, we will follow through on the recommendations as long as we need to do so. Six to 12 months is our starting point and we would hope things are finished by then. Often, however, it takes time to turn the boat around. We will stick with it as long as we know progress is being made and there is an implementation timeline. As Ms Ward mentioned earlier, we have done that in between two and three years in the case of some recommendations. Ultimately, the legislation says that if I am not satisfied that recommendations are being followed through on, I have the power to bring a special report to the Oireachtas. Our office was set up in 2002, the Act was introduced in 2004 and we have not yet availed of that right. There were one or two situations previously where we wrote to the Secretary General of the Department to say we were considering bringing a special report to the Oireachtas. That tended to focus minds and get things done. It is what we would ultimately do if there is a lack of satisfaction or progress on the recommendations in this report.

As the Deputy noted, there is a large number of recommendations in the report. We have a timeline and a set of plans in place with Tusla, IPAS and involving the two bodies together. The Department is behind the report and there is backing from it for each of the recommendations. We will check how far the organisations have come in six months and in 12 months. I do not expect all the recommendations to be done but they certainly should be well progressed. Ultimately, if I feel frustrated that things are not going anywhere or something has stagnated, we can look at the option of going to the Oireachtas and putting the responsibility back on it to challenge the Minister and the Secretary General to do something more. As I said, it has never yet come to that and I hope we will not be in that situation in this instance, but that power is there and available to us.

I ask my colleague to respond to the Deputy's questions on inspections, social workers, recommendation No. 3 and referrals.