Ms Claire Feeney:

I will comment on the local strategic plans initially and then I will refer to the overall consultation. The deadline we have for the strategic plan is a soft deadline, namely the end of May. The reason we have settled on that date is to try to ensure we are getting the local pictures as well as the national feed-in so it will not be a case of taking submissions at national level, with submissions being received only through the website. It is a matter of also taking on board local input, even the local strategic plans in draft. If any local authority or housing and disability steering group has a concern about the short timeframe, we can absolutely address that and take a submission in draft initially.

With regard to the overall strategy and the consultation, I will give a rundown on what we are doing. As the Minister of State said, the deadline for the completion of the strategy is the end of this year. I am told we will have it ready on the Minister's desk by the middle of November. At present, we are in the consultation phase. We currently have a landing page on our website, www.housingagency.ie. There are a number of versions of the questionnaire there, including English and Irish versions. These have been enabled to be compatible with all text-to-speech systems. We have an easy-read and plain English Word version because the platform we use did not allow for full easy-read capability. The easy-read Word version can be downloaded, completed and posted back to us. The address is on the website. We also have a PDF version that can be completed and emailed. In addition, we have a video that goes through all the questions. It is only ten minutes long. People can use it as a guide, whether they are doing a facilitated session with people or otherwise.

The next round of advertisements will be in the newspapers on Sunday. They will include a contact number that people can ring to request a hard copy of the survey because we are conscious that not everybody might have access to online services. In addition, we are making people very much aware that it is not just about the questionnaire; if they want to make a submission, they should do so. We have set a deadline of 16 April for closing off the survey or questionnaire but we will accept submissions up to the end of May.

On the issue of hearing the voices of people with disabilities, there have been 920 online submissions to date. Of the 872 people who answered the initial question, "Who are you?", 184 or 20% are disabled people and a further 35% are a family member of a disabled person. It is encouraging that we are getting the real views of the people we are going to affect through the new strategy.