Dr. Fergal Lynch:

Thank you Chair. I agree it is an ambitious programme and it is important to embrace that. My view of it is that while it is ambitious, if we set ourselves a much longer timetable, the danger is that it would simply take that longer period of time to achieve. Therefore, we have set ourselves something that is very challenging indeed. I do not think we are being utterly unrealistic, but we are challenging ourselves. We are taking what we have described as a multi-strand approach to the accommodation, so we are not putting all our eggs in one basket, so to speak. We are talking about housing and apartments, we are talking about existing buildings, we are talking about rent-a-room, we are talking about private tenancies where these are required and so on. We are not attempting to do this all through the one single means.

We are developing the implementation plan at the moment and we would hope to publish an implementation plan next year.

That will be very much a live and an iterative document. It will change and we will update it as we go. Our current version of it is very much in draft form so we deliberately have not published it. However, we do have a web page where we keep people up to date with what is happening so far and the progress we have made. The implementation plan will be quite a detailed document and we would hope to publish that next year.

In terms of realism and achieving what we are setting out to achieve, there are a couple of other points I would like to make. We are using a project management approach, which is based on specifics of what you will do, when you will do it, how you will do it, the components that you need, the deadlines that you need to set and so on. Another thing we are doing to be sure to be realistic about this is we are drawing on existing expertise in the area. For example, the Housing Agency has been hugely helpful and supportive to us already. We are working with the local authorities and with the County and City Management Association, CCMA, we have got a very strong programme board, as I mentioned earlier, and we are taking a phased approach. It is a very ambitious programme, but one that is doable, although obviously challenging.

In terms of year-by-year progress, we have achieved much of what we set out to achieve this year so far. For example, on the funding side, we have secured funding and a deeper commitment to give us additional capital expenditure should we require it in the current year. We have managed to reduce the number of emergency centres, which I mentioned earlier. The vulnerability assessments are in place. We have also put a residential welfare team in place, which was of the things we were anxious to do in the current year. We have a customer service team in place, and I mentioned earlier we were scoping out a customer consultation group. The programme board is up and running and doing very good work. It is giving us very good advice and information. We talked briefly about the external advisory group. The transition team is up and running. We have national standards against which HIQA will be monitoring. They have been in place since 1 January. That is just a quick summary of the sort of things we have put in place so far this year.

Of course, I do not underestimate the number of things that have to be done in subsequent years. There is much to be done, but we have made good progress this year. I see this year and the early part of next year as very much developmental and very much in the context of planning and being ready to put bricks and mortar in place thereafter. We have made good progress.