Mr. Seán Moynihan:

The Deputy is correct that the pandemic has probably made it harder to know exactly what is going on and made it less transparent. It is an interesting model. The reality is many organisations, such as ours and Age Action Ireland, even in the private sector, and campaigning organisations would have put a great deal of effort into providing inputs into the development of that policy but when it goes to implementation it really goes back down in the public service and the statutory bodies. In the public service there are plenty of very fine individuals working on them but many people who may have created the thinking that led to the policy are not involved in the implementation. We have felt some of it on the ground, in fairness, but the point is we are not quite sure to what extent and how much national coverage there is of some of the actions. It is time to see an implementation report so that we can have that conversation.

I also believe the statutory bodies are full of fine people. There is a common understanding of what we want to do but there may not be a common understanding of how and when to do it.

We would welcome seeing that report so we could re-engage in the debate that led to the development of the policy in the first place.