Mr. Conan McKenna:

It has taken longer than anyone would have liked to have made significant progress on the decision support service. One of the two items of good news on the service is that the director, Ms Áine Flynn, is now in place. She is a solicitor with some considerable experience in this area. She was recruited by the Public Appointments Service, with the Mental Health Commission as a client. She has been in place for the past couple of weeks. As one will have seen in recent days, the budget has now been confirmed for the service to get it up and running and give it the money it needs for start-up purposes during 2018. In fairness to the new director, who has only got her feet under the table in the past two weeks, she needs to be given a chance to examine everything herself in light of the very substantial budgetary allocation and take a view on exactly when things can happen. It is hoped the service will be up and running at the beginning of 2019 but, as I have implied, there are many things to put in place.

It represents a fundamental switch in how public policy and legislation handles these matters and it must be done very carefully and properly to ensure that all those concerned are properly protected and a proper regime is put in place. The two pieces of good news on this are that the director and the budgets are in place to get it going.