Mr. Damien McCallion:

It is about three years, Deputy. There is one cautionary matter I would mention. The projects are innovative. They are targeted at certain communities in small areas. They are not necessarily trying to achieve scale. In fact, it is almost the opposite. Their objective is to try to prove that the innovation, or concept, works. I mentioned the community paramedic project. We had two community paramedics - one in the Inishowen area of Donegal, and I think Monaghan was the other county in the South. Then there was Tyrone in Northern Ireland, and Scotland. Six individual people were trained for 12 months. It was a big commitment by those individuals. They were then able to take referrals from general practice that avoided people having to get an ambulance to take them to hospital, or make a 999 call. They were able to assess whether people needed to go to hospital. It was very much about trying to do that innovation. The numbers might be relatively small but, having proved it works, it has been taken on by the ambulance service, which is trying to extend it into other areas. Our role is not about achieving scale, in terms of what we are trying to achieve with the EU. The EU projects are very much focused on innovation and learning and then trying to move those into the mainstream.