Ms Patricia Finlay:

On retrospective allegations, as the Deputy will know HIQA investigated Tusla's statutory investigation, on the direction of the Minister, relating to how Tusla managed allegations of sexual abuse, particularly retrospective ones, and persons of concern. Since 2018, we have initiated quite significant service improvement plans with regard to how we respond to retrospective allegations of abuse. That has widely encompassed the structure of how we deliver services. We identified that we had a capacity issue, in terms of the number of staff who were allocated to do this work, and an additional training need because this work is very forensic. We must ensure due process and fair procedure. Historically, we have at times fallen down in that regard, which has meant difficulties in having to do new assessments. That is obviously is very traumatic for a person coming forward to report abuse. We also had policy issues in 2022, following a very large stakeholder engagement, both public and internal, with our own staff and externally. Dr. Joe Mooney, who has been mentioned, very much contributed to that. We took a wide range of submissions from across NGOs that work very closely with people who have experienced child sexual abuse and other abuse. From that, we implemented the child abuse substantiation, CAS, policy that we have in place.

On having consistency of response, again we have been open about it being a challenge for us to ensure, for example, that somebody is responded to in County Kerry in the same way as in County Donegal. We have an oversight governance body within the organisation to oversee the implementation of the new CAS policy. We have CAS workers within the organisation who have received specific training. We have ongoing training in the interviewing skills required under this policy. The governance oversight group is in place to oversee how implementation is going. We have developed communities of practice to bring practitioners who deal with this work together on a regular basis to share learning and thereby promote consistency.