Ms Nuala Ward:

The question that was posed as to whether or not special care is working is a very good one and one that Tusla will have to answer. Obviously, placing a child in a special care unit is an incredibly serious act. It involves deprivation of liberty for non-criminal reasons, so it is really important that we know that it works and why it works. Our greatest concern about special care is how it fits back into the wider community, what happens when a child leaves special care and how fit for purpose the community is in taking the child back. That is a very serious concern for us within the wider context of what we have just spoken about. It is back to Deputy Costello's original question. It is about demand anticipation. We have 58 children right now, tonight, in emergency special placements. How many of those children are there because we do not have enough special care placements or because the special care placement they were in did not work? We also have children who go through multiple special care placements. It is a really important question, and until we have the answer to the question about special care we will not know what legislative requirements are needed in order to improve it. That is our view.

I will hand back to my colleague on guiding principles because that is of equal importance.