Ms Yvonne Woods:

I shall briefly answer the other two points made by the Senator. She mentioned the Combat Poverty Agency. Obviously FLAC opposed its abolition because the agency specifically catered to poverty in society and carried out some very valuable report work. Its work was supposed to be carried on by the Department but unfortunately that has not happened. FLAC would support its return as soon as possible, if that could happen. Failing that, we want to see its work carried on. Perhaps it is too much to hope that the new Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission could be a merger of Combat Poverty and the NCCRI, which was also an extremely valuable group.

I shall make a quick comment on mortgage arrears. FLAC has extremely serious concerns about the lack of independent information and advice available to people experiencing troubles. FLAC's information services are swamped with such queries and we are trying, very hard, to make policy proposals that will help. For example, our director general, Ms Noeline Blackwell, proposed that an independent service might be cobbled together from various sources, but so far her proposal has yielded very little response by the Departments that she contacted.

FLAC is doing its best and tries to inform its volunteer advisers in its centres on how to deal with such queries more comprehensively. Lots of other groups are doing the same but in a voluntary capacity. I refer to voluntary groups who do such work. The State should-----