Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)
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1277. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth further to Parliamentary Question No. 11 of 24 October 2024, when reporting will return; and when the information will be made public (details supplied). [1688/25]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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My Department began the procurement exercise for the next iteration of court reporting on 25 October 2024. An Expression of Interest was sent to organisations eligible under the relevant sections of the Child Care Act 1991 and S.I. No. 467 of 2012, inviting them to submit proposals for a two-year reporting and research Project focused on child care proceedings.

By 8 November, three expressions of interest had been received. Subsequently, a Call for Proposals document was issued by the Department on 15 November 2024, with a submission deadline of 6 December.

The next phase of the project was expected to commence in January 2025, with a maximum of €400,000 in funding available over the two-year period of the Project. However, no proposal documents were submitted in advance of the 6 December deadline.

Subsequently, the Expression of Interest and Call for Proposal documents were revised and streamlined in order to attract interest in the Project. This also included an increase to the Project’s budget increasing. The budget of the project has been increased to a maximum budget of €416,000 over the two-year period, for a total increase of €16,000 across that period compared to the previous budget.

A revised timeline has been put in place, with the deadline for return of Expressions of Interest set to 24 January 2025. The deadline for completed proposals has been set for 28 February 2025, with a final decision on the awarding of the project to be made by 13 March 2025. Following a completion of the assessment project, it is planned that the new Project will resume by April 2025.