Dr. Niall Muldoon:

Yes. I will be referring to some of the stuff I have said already. The whole idea from me is always prevention. We need to prevent the child coming out of the family. We agree on that completely. The partnership with parents and family support system within Tusla has to be increased and broadened so we can given those supports as early as possible because we know the children who need the help. Locally, the social workers will know. They know about certain areas. They know from the public health nurse, the early years and from the teachers where the issues are and we need to put in those supports. One of the things I have always argued is that when a school is nominated as a DEIS school, we should also nominate that area as a DEIS area that needs extra support. The parents would get further education, maybe therapy, adult education, literacy and maybe get reskilled.

What is happening is we recognise the child is in a disadvantaged area and we give him or her an education and extra support, but then the child goes back to the home that is not fully supported and the parents may not be supporting them. We know where the children are vulnerable and we have to provide more. From our point of view, that is where a lot of the stuff happens. We have to go upstream and give the PPFS programme much more impetus and support around that in order that the children are not taken out of the family.

Ms Ward will talk about the GAL side of things.