Mr. Gerard Brophy:

Deputy Coveney asked about the data and I will answer it before I go. It would be great to see these figures coming through. Earlier Senator Seery Kearney referred to the High Court and going through the courts. One of the problems we have at present is that it takes up to seven or eight years for cases to get to the Central Criminal Court for prosecution. There is a long lead-in period. We are looking to cut this down and we are involved with the courts, the Garda and the HSE. There are significant problems with data sharing with regard to the time that disclosure takes. We do not have data after four years. We have now begun to gather data and baseline it with An Garda Síochána, working out what key metrics will give us the indication. It is not just about prosecutions. It is also about seeing children through it and then about how they get their therapy.

We are starting to gather these metrics and to have metrics between the three agencies. We have never done this before. We have never shared data at such an early stage before. We have a legislative basis to share it but we have never tried to do it this early. We probably need changes in the legislation, which the Department is working on with a review of the Child Care Act, to provide us with a clear legislative basis for this. A number of challenges are coming together that we can learn from and we are actively working on all of them. No more than from this committee, we are getting large amount of co-operation and success with it.