Ms Bairbre Nic Aongusa:

I agree with the Deputy that it is important we take the time to get this policy right. I also agree that we need to do it in consultation and collaboration with the island communities. We have an excellent track record in the Department of Rural and Community Development of engaging with communities and with our stakeholders in developing our policies. I was personally involved in working on Sustainable, Inclusive and Empowered Communities, which is our five-year strategy for the community and voluntary sector. When we developed that, we worked in partnership with a stakeholder group. That was widely welcomed by the sector when it was published by the former Minister, Deputy Ring, in 2019. I currently chair a stakeholders' group that oversees the implementation of the policy and I expect we can adopt that kind of model when we are working with the island communities on this policy. We are committed absolutely to engaging with Comhdháil Oileáin na hÉireann right throughout this process and we will continue to engage with it as the work evolves.

The process of policy development, as the committee will be aware, is an iterative one - we did this also when we were doing the community and voluntary strategy - and takes a variety of different forums such as stakeholder engagement, informal meetings and ongoing dialogue. We want to make sure we develop a policy that makes sense and is meaningful for everyone involved and to have all the conversations we need to have. The in-person consultations we will now have on the two remaining islands will also give us a fresh perspective on the issues given the time that has elapsed.

It is important to say that, ultimately, decisions on the policy will be a matter for Government and it may not be possible to deliver on everything to which island communities aspire. However, we are a while away from that yet and we are teasing out those issues. Teasing them out is what the consultation and engagement process is all about.

We are very much committed. I am personally committed to proceeding on that basis of full collaboration and consultation. As I stated earlier in terms of the timeline, our timeline is to have a draft for the Minister's consideration by the summer with the objective of publishing a policy this year.