Ms Marissa Ryan:

We are not prescriptive in how independent advocacy should be rolled out. Our view is that every child in care in Ireland and every young care leaver has the right to an advocate. It does not have to be through EPIC. Going back to Deputy Sherlock's point, the Government might take a different view on how advocacy services can be rolled out. As I outlined, in Northern Ireland it is done at local authority level and so on. What we really believe is that every child should automatically have the right to access an independent advocate. It should not be contingent on him or her being able to identify EPIC, coming to us and nine advocates across the whole of Ireland on a small amount of funding delivering advocacy. They deserve better. It is a really vital part of child protection and welfare, and any child should be automatically able to avail that.

At present, independent advocacy services are not regulated, because EPIC is the only organisation providing an independent advocacy service to children and young people, specifically those in care and leaving care. While we, much like TIGALA outlined, have Garda vetting, high standards, codes of practice and I can stand over every employee in the organisation, we should be subject to better regulation. We should actually have proper statutory guidance on how we deliver advocacy. There should be national standards, because again that is what children deserve. They need a really robust service, because those situations can be extremely precarious for them.

That is my view anyway. I would not presume to tell the Government how an advocacy service should be run, but that is an example of how a child's voice can be brought through advocacy to ensure children are not bewildered or overwhelmed, they know who is responsible and they have the information they require. We have spoken before in this committee about how so many children in care come to us and they do not know why they are in care. They do not necessarily have information. Care leaver parents do not often understand the care proceedings their children are going through. These are the kind of things an advocate can help with, and that is why we believe it should be an automatic right.