Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)

In a couple of the Minister's replies today she stated she will introduce the guidelines and she will see following that how best the resources can be allocated. She indicated that the audit which is currently ongoing will be a help and the fact that extra social workers are being employed, which is to address other weaknesses in the system, will be a help with mandatory reporting. That is most concerning, in particular when one takes into account what has been said by experts such as Geoffrey Shannon and the head of children's services, Gordon Jeyes, and others, who have indicated that what we need is a step-by-step approach and we should not run before we can walk. However, what we see is that the Minister is coming up with plans but with no assessment of the resources and how they will work.

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