Mr. Richard Fallon:

As the Deputy knows, to get things going, some provisions of the Act were commenced late in 2016. A director was appointed in 2017. There is a high-level steering group that is driving the initiative. It involves representatives of the Department of Health and our Department. Work is continuing to recruit the necessary staff resources, install IT systems and so on. Research work was done in developing a code of practice for use in implementation of the advance healthcare directive. The director of the Decision Support Service has conducted work which has included organisational design, a scoping of the service, project governance, defining the regulatory framework, stakeholder engagement, the mapping of customer services and processes. There is quite a bit of work to be done, having regard to the group the system will benefit. The Department funded researchers in the development of codes of practice under section 103. The Minister for Health has a multidisciplinary working group which is assisting in the development of the code of practice for the advance healthcare directive provisions which he will be commencing under Part 8 of the Act. An allocation of €3 million was provided for, of which €2.1 million was provided in 2018. The figure was increased to €3.5 million in 2019, of which we expect about €2.7 million to be drawn down this year.