Mr. Denis Leamy:

Regarding the question on a direct line, we have what we call a funder query dedicated phone line for Departments. I will need to check, but my understanding is that Oireachtas queries come through that line as well. We will get the number for the Chairman before the meeting finishes and email it to him. We deal with many queries on an ongoing basis as well as representations from Members of the Oireachtas. It can sometimes be difficult for Members to raise individual sensitive issues, so we tend to deal with many queries on that basis.

I apologise to the Senator for not reverting to her regarding initiatives in respect of towns of between 1,000 and 5,000 people. It may be time to consider more targeted initiatives. When I was writing my presentation, I was thinking of how we used to be involved in a number of dedicated programmes to small towns or areas within cities or some rural areas, for example, RAPID. A new RAPID programme is being directly managed by the Department through local authorities. Our experience of RAPID, especially in provincial towns, was positive. It was not just about the money. While money helped, of more importance was the agencies, each of which had a budget head, working together on the issues that pertained to the areas in question. They were instructed to share resources and focus on the key targets in each town. They then had to account to an implementation body in the town itself, which in turn had to report to a national monitoring committee comprising all Departments.

I am not saying that we need to replicate them exactly, but these were the types of targeted initiative that worked, especially in smaller areas. Many areas identified different issues to be addressed, so this model allowed for a bit of innovation and creativity. There was a small amount of funding to animate that or match-fund something that an agency or community representatives might have devised. I neglected to mention that a good number of community representatives also sat around that table. They were informing the process and challenging what they were hearing around the table.

These are the types of targeted initiative that we had in mind, but there could be others relating to, for example, people with disabilities. We are involved in one under the Ability programme through the Department of Employment and Social Protection. We were also involved in the Equality for Women Measure, EWM. That programme tended to be extremely bureaucratic because of the EU dimension, but if there was one without the bureaucratic dimension that focused on gender-specific issues, it would be useful and appropriate at this time.