Mr. Tomás Lally:

Senator Higgins asked me a specific question about the previous county-wide restructuring. From my experience in Mayo, when I became the manager of Mayo Citizens Information Service we had four local committees in Ballina, Castlebar, Claremorris and Belmullet. The four committees came together with members from other local and statutory groups, such as the Department of Social Protection, and put together a plan to integrate the services throughout the county. I was appointed in April 2000 to work with this newly-constituted board that had representatives from all the local committees. That was key. Each committee was represented on the county-wide board so they had a say in what was going to happen. There was buy-in and there was a process as well. There was an initial stage when services might have felt that they were happy doing their own little thing or whatever. But it was clearly seen, through dialogue and an open process, that this was going to be of benefit to the community and to the county-wide area of Mayo. By having open discussion and making sure that resources were being spread properly through the area, people began to see that it was for the good of their services. It made sense because it was the same as the local authority area of Mayo; we were dealing with Mayo County Council - so there was a link-in with service providers at that level. It made sense. The county model seemed to be the correct level at which to integrate.

Deputy Brady also asked if the present structure would fail governance requirements. We have submitted documents to the committee; perhaps we need to go through them, perhaps not. I referenced the service level agreement, which is very exact. There are exacting demands being placed on citizens information services, not only in terms of the service but also of the financial controls. I do not know if the committee wants to go through the detail on that.