Mr. John Dolan:

I thank members for their attendance and for their interest in this matter. They have received our general pre-budget submission. As it would raise challenges for the Government, I appreciate the invitation to present at this meeting.

In broad strokes, there needs to be a counter-cyclical approach. It is not easy to do. It is while one is in a crisis that one needs to plan for the recovery. For approximately a decade last time around, there were concerns about, for example, there not being enough occupational therapists, speech and language therapists, etc. It was only when the heat and capacity had left the economy that we got around to establishing special postgraduate programmes to increase numbers. We know the rest of the story - by the time they qualified, the game was up.

I will put a challenge to the Government. When one must deal with hard-nosed income and expenditure and trying to create jobs, there must also be a little office where people concentrate on keeping the social infrastructure alive and ready to kick in after the recession. Otherwise, there will be a lag. Although a smart economy is often discussed, a smart social infrastructure is required to drive it and to give people comfort. People with disabilities and their families cannot be fully supported without a robust social infrastructure from the child to the elderly person. They are not in different places. We have mainstreaming.

I will give people in government a difficult message. Although there may be an intention, we do not get a sense of a capacity to protect vulnerable people. The personal assistant and home care debacle is still ongoing, as are issues with the mobility allowance, etc. A Government ambition to have a framework of social infrastructure without certainty as to how that will be done will require civil society, local communities and so on to work. This would be a game changer. We need to find ways to do work that would otherwise be impossible because we do not have the money. Instead of cutting because of a lack of money, we need to try to change the understanding of the game.