Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy again. There are three elements to this, with the first being the securing of funding last year in the budget. The Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, was successful in doing that and the funding ensures we can recruit staff to work on the decision support services. That is in train and the funding, which was in excess of €3 million, was secured. That work is under way to ensure we deliver on the target of having a decision support service in place by June to July of next year.

The next element is the legislation being brought forward in this session that amends the 2015 Bill. That will put a legal footing in place. We need to have those elements in place. The third element is the publication of the UN report going before the Cabinet.

We are on target, at this moment in time, for next June or July. Once those three pathways are cleared, we then will be in a position to follow up on what the Secretary General said before the Oireachtas committee on working towards the publication of the optional protocol.

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