Mr. Des Delaney:

The current plan is to have three regional Barnahus sites: Barnahus West, Barnahus South and Barnahus East. That was a recommendation the operational committee, BNASC, made to the interdepartmental group. A number of factors were taken into account in that recommendation. These included the geographical accessibility of each centre to families and children. I fully agree with the Deputy regarding the Council of Europe, the EU and implementation across Europe. There certainly seems to be a more extensive network of Barnahus sites in Council of Europe member states. However, we have not yet reached a point at which those three centres are operationally live. The IDG is fully open to future suggestions from BNASC to extend the number of potential Barnahus site but, at present, our focus is on getting these sites operational and up and running. As has been outlined by the HSE, Children's Health Ireland and Tusla today, there are ongoing discussions with CHI and the HSE, particularly with regard to making the centre in the east of the country operational. Our focus comes from that BNASC recommendation to the interdepartmental group but I would never say never and I am not disagreeing with what the Deputy is saying.