Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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Sage Advocacy has engaged with a number of other bodies, including the Christine Buckley Centre, Right of Place Second Chance, Towards Healing, One in Four, Barnardos, Focus Ireland and the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, as well as Crosscare and other bodies and agencies across the UK. There is a relationship between them and other agencies in terms of support.

In response to Deputy Pringle, it is a three-year agreement initially and is subject to review.

I am familiar with the one-stop shop because that point was raised with me as well. There was a case made about where that one-stop shop would be located and where the focus might be. The approach taken with Sage Advocacy is that there are advocates in the different regions. Nine additional staff have been taken on by the organisation, focused in a number of regions so as to make themselves readily available, rather than having one central focus point in Dublin or wherever. It was felt there was a better opportunity to engage on the ground where regional personnel were available to do the work. To this point, though it has only been up and running since November, that seems to be working well. That can be reviewed. Rather than centralisation, the regional approach was seen to be more equal and fairly distributed so as to give the maximum opportunity for survivors to engage.