Dr. Niall Muldoon:

From our point of view, we have encouraged the Minister for children on a number of occasions to ensure there is no disparity that hampers the provision of services to children. Again, we do not engage with how the Government spends its money, but we know they were equal until the economic crisis. There was no harm in that, no issue with that, nobody had any difficulty, everyone balanced out and we had a much better service at that time. We are now in danger not just of separation between section 38s and the HSE or whatever else is providing these services, because we are moving into private services which could even make it worse. We have seen it in England. We have seen how it pans out when it moves down to only five or six providers, which then have the State over a barrel. They are the ones providing whatever they want and they also cherry-pick the children they provide for. That map has very clearly been laid out within Tusla. When CEO, Bernard Gloster, clearly decided to bring it down from a 60% reliance on private to under 50%. One of the easiest ways to start that is to eliminate that disparity in wages and provide proper funding for State-supported voluntary services. That is how we get back control of the system and the fact it has not happened is extremely frustrating for me and a real kick in the teeth fro the children who need those sorts of services. I certainly have no difficulty in supporting that call for parity.