Dr. Niall Muldoon:

I thank Deputy Buckley for the great outline he provided of some of his concerns and on the resistance, which I think is a great term. To touch on the data issue, Ms Gibney and I were in Geneva last week on the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and a great quote by one of the key committee members for Ireland was that without data, one is making policy blind. Again the committee has recognised that where children are concerned, we do not have the right data to create the right policies. It is hugely important we get that disaggregated data for children and within children's rights for all the different types of children we have, to get the right policies.

From my point on view, I want to touch on accountability and responsibility. Do we have enough power in our office? I would not be chasing more power. Our job is always about moral suasion. It is about persuading the organisation in the system to change in a way that is better for children. I have been in the office for eight years now and have seen a number of agencies and have gone through a number of CEOs who have changed and come and gone. We had people who were specifically designed to deny and defend. The members will all know the concept of that. Deny repeatedly that something happened and eventually if it does go somewhere, defend against it. That is not a way of self-growth. Self-reflection leads to self-correction and we do not do that as a system. We do not promote it within our Civil Service, or at least promote it enough. What I have found to counter this was clear when we had Paul Reid and Bernard Gloster within the HSE and Tusla. When I came with issues around the Jack and the Molly cases, which related to two children with disabilities, they came together as heads of their organisations and changed what was done for those children and those cohorts of children. Leadership, responsibility and accountability come from the top. We need to chose the right people and promote and support them when they make the hard decisions. To make those hard decisions and be accountable, they will have to change the people below them who have been used to denying and defending. Members will have watched in any of the committees here as all some of the Departments will do when they come in is to push back. I always give the example of aviation. Aviation thrives on mistakes. They ask every single question. Once a mistake has happened and there has been a near miss, the industry goes into it in great depth in order to ensure it never happens again. The industry asks itself how to ensure the near miss is learned from. As those concerned got away with it, the idea is to make sure they never get that close again to making the mistake. That is what our public services representatives need to be doing. They need to be promoted to recognise mistakes as an opportunity for learning and for self-correction. That is where one gets the accountability and responsibility but also the innovation, pride and opportunity to really thrive as a public servant. People will not mind making mistakes if their boss will take a look at the situation and say why and how it will be fixed. If they come to the Deputies as legislators and funders and are not given those opportunities to change, that is a different thing. At this moment in time, they are protecting their patch and we need leadership that is self-accountable and self-responsible. Hopefully we will get that in the near future because from our children's point of view, it is well past time.