Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We have the same worry. I meant to say at the start that I would be happy to engage with the committee much more over the next couple of weeks, if needs be. We hope to bring forward the action plan. It is a process that I totally believe in, having been involved in An Action Plan for Jobs and a housing plan, which the Deputy may have different views on. I would say that they are working, but apart from that, they work from point of view of being able to track them and see who is doing what. That is why the action plan approach will work for this too. I will be happy to have the committee members involved in formalising and agreeing the final actions. I believe it should be a cross-party action plan. That will work better. We will need the support of party members throughout the country to implement this and we may as well try to have people on board with us. I will be happy to do that together over the next month or two to try to finalise it. I was asked when it would be finalised. I do not see why we cannot have everything finalised in January and get that finished as well. That is the conversation in that regard.

Those planning conversations, exactly as the Deputy said, are the little bits we are trying to decide, as well as with the legal advice. Some counties will lead off on this and some will not. Whether we can have different powers for different scenarios in different counties is the kind of stuff we are going to tease out and look at as well.

On the question of the who, it will probably be Ms Gill here with me. There will be one person in charge and one person only. It will be that person's full job to do this, to implement this, and to feed back to the board.

Will that person have a particular grade? I am not great on people's titles and positions to be honest. It is fine if the person can do the job, regardless of what the title is. The fact that Ms Hurley, who is the money woman, is here with me means that we are real about this. The assistant secretary is here with me, as Minister of State, along with Ms Tobin and Ms Gill who have been working on this for the past couple of months. This is serious and this will happen, and that is very clear in our Department. It will not be left to one side or left unfunded. It is going to happen. It is just a question of getting it right. Delaying anything is not in my nature. As most people know, I asked that this report be published a long time ago. It is there. It was not done as quickly as I wanted it to be, but we have it and I will do it. We are not going to sit back on it, but it will still take a little bit of time to bring everyone on board and to make the right decisions, together with arriving at the timeline of each recommendation. That is where it is at.

I am conscious that there is discomfort for some members here in taking away powers or changing anyone's powers, but we may have to do that to try to get this moved on once and for all.

I agree with the tracking of Traveller accommodation new builds. Refurbishment has to happen, and certainly with some of the ones I have seen, major refurbishment has to happen-----