The Chair of the National Review Panel (NPR) has rejected criticism that it is not independent or transparent, but said it would benefit from being on a "clearer legislative footing".
The National Review Panel, which conducts reviews in child deaths and serious incidents, is examining the case of a boy who is missing and presumed dead in north county Dublin.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio One's This Week its Chair Helen Buckley said: "We are operationally independent and we are transparent, we're not on a statutory footing and that process is actually underway with the Department right now."
The Special Rapporteur on Child Protection Caoilfhionn Gallagher, writing in the Sunday Independent, said that the NPR was "not operationally independent of Tusla, has no statutory power and its processes are not transparent".
It followed similar criticisms from the Ombudsman for Children Niall Muldoon again that the NPR had "no statutory power...no independent authority to publish reports, and both Tusla and the Department of Children agreed that it is not fit for purpose since 2018".
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Ms Buckley said "in general... we would benefit from a clearer legislative footing".
"I think all round our process would benefit from that," she said.
The Chair of the NPR said it "anticipate[s] full cooperation" in its work, and there had been "very very few" cases where it had not been given access to records or reports requested when carrying out an inquiry.
"In cases where we have not managed to get records that we've requested, we are always in a position to make a comment on the inter-agency working," Ms Buckely said.
Draft report on child to be sent to Minister
Ms Buckley said the NPR had completed its draft report into another child who had engaged with TUSLA and is missing and presumed dead, Kyran Durnin and it should be sent to the Minister for Children "in the next five to six weeks" pending legal and data protection scrutiny.
The Chair of the NPR said she believed it should be possible to publish that report without interfering in the Garda investigation, but that the decision rested with the Minister and the Garda Commissioner.
"Our focus was not on the actual disappearance, who caused it or who was responsible, so I imagine that it should be publishable," Ms Buckely said.
Ms Buckley said she would like the NPR to have the power to be able to decide independently whether to publish the report.
"If we had the governance structure to enable us to do that, that's something that I think we should be doing" she said.
Ms Buckley said that she supported the Ombudsman for Children's proposal for mechanism for reviewing the deaths of children which had statutory powers which would span across several government departments, but rejected his suggestion that the NPR was not a proper way to investigate the death of a child.
Reports were 'as extensive as is required'
Ms Buckley said the NPR's remit was wider, and she maintained that its reports were "as extensive as is required" and were completed in a "reasonable period of time".
In the case of Kyran Durnin, she said the NPR's initial report was completed within ten months.
"I know that the process that the Ombudsman is proposing emerged from the National Office of Clinical Audit, but their focus is mainly on patient safety and public health, which are very important and it would be a very necessary process," Ms Buckely said.
"The focus of the type of reviews we do is different because we don't examine a cause of death, for example.
"We examine the quality of services that have been provided for that child and family over the previous number of years. And we also review serious incidents, we're not confined to child deaths."
Ms Buckley said that she also wanted to "set the record straight" in relation to the number of reports it had published.
She said that while she believed that Mr Muldoon said it had published 19 reports, it had in fact published 90.
Ms Buckely said that she has consistently raised issues around the NPR's "governance, interagency working and independence" in its annual report.
"Now we do work very independently, some of our panel members are from outside the jurisdiction, but I think the public perception of our independence isn't always as clear as it should be and it would certainly help that," Ms Buckley said.
She added that placing the NPR on a statutory footing could also lead to "faster access to records from other organisations, and we'd also have a more robust system."
