Neasa Hourigan (Dublin Central, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I would appreciate that. I am probably biased because of my background, but some homes do not last for 25 years so I wonder if that is coming from the duration of an average social tenancy or what the reason is. Some of the social homes we have built in the past are approaching 100 years old now and are still going strong. That is something the committee might return to at some stage.

For someone who is relatively new to this and is somewhat reading it from the outside, this report has been very useful in terms of understanding how various Departments operate. I will outline what might be helpful for me so as to address some of the opacity. The discussion around equality budgeting and green budgeting are taking shape for the future and I am trying to understand how budgets have been formed in the past and what the metrics are within the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform for deciding on how money is spent. At what level do alarm bells go off when faced with a Department that is underperforming in particular areas of expenditure? I ask the question in the context of what happens the next year. I have done it in a university context and any of us who has ever run a budget before knows that if one does not spend one's budget, one often does not get the same budget again.

I am looking at page 18 on disability services, items 3 and 4. Output 3 is "Centre-based respite nights provided to people with disabilities" and output 4 is "Movements facilitated from congregated to community settings". Both of these are massive issues in society at the moment. The proportion of both targets delivered is in the region of 50%. I am just using these as an example; I do not really want to go into the weeds with the details. At what stage do alarm bells go off within the Department? What is the response? How is it dealt with? Does the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform go to the relevant Department and ask what the issue is? What is the performance response?