Mr. Brian Spain:

As I mentioned in my opening statement, the Bill was published on Monday and we hope it will be taken before Christmas. When Civil Defence comes back into the Department, we are working to put in place a forum to allow us to be able to tap into the views and experience of people such as the Civil Defence volunteers, the Civil Defence Officers Association and other relevant Departments and Government agencies. We are conscious that these people have given us invaluable advice through the years. Even before the Civil Defence Board was established, we would have had very close contacts with many of those organisations. I appreciate the Deputy's point and it is our intention to have some type of forum in which we can tap into the experience and advice of the various organisations. That is particularly true for volunteers because Civil Defence would not exist without the volunteers. We often use the expression that Civil Defence is about volunteers, volunteers, volunteers. We have already assured the volunteer organisation of Civil Defence that there will be a forum where we can capture their views, advice and experience.