Gillian Toole (Meath East, Independent)
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Good morning everybody. I thank the witnesses for meeting us. Apologies that I was late. Similar to Deputy Keogh, I have limited experience, so the information the witnesses have given verbally and in advance from research has been extremely useful. I thank them for the essential and sensitive work they do with people who avail of or require their services.

I am not quite sure who to direct my questions to, so the witnesses can jump in as appropriate. Given the feedback the witnesses have given today and in the documents in advance on where they see improvements or gaps, how do they feed that back? Do the three agencies collaborate and co-ordinate? Is there a formal feedback mechanism to the Department of justice and the Department of Health? If there were three referrals or standardised requests from each of the groupings today for the committee to bring forward, what might they be? A person came to me in relation to one incident. They have not asked me to move forward with it but just gave me feedback on their experience of the system as a committee of one. It has to do with the stamp duty and-or an exit tax on each transaction. Is there any interaction between NAS, for example, and Revenue on the financial implications? Another example given to me involved a bank statement for a ward and €20. I appreciate that this is heading into the banking and financial piece, which may not be the remit of any of the witnesses. The concern was the investment of funds by the ward of court committee. How is that overseen? Is there feedback to the committee vis-à-vis same? How often is a review of each of the functions carried out? Does it culminate in an overall review of ensuring that there is autonomy and integrity for wards or those exiting in April?