Dr. Aideen Hartney:

I thank the Senator for her comments. It is not the first time we have heard that Ireland is considered policy or strategy rich and implementation poor. It is interesting to hear that she is having similar experiences with other strategies. In terms of how to ensure the next strategy can look different or have a different outcome, a couple of suggestions we have fed into the pot is that there should be prioritisation. There should be a focus on some high-level key goals or key themes rather than list of granular actions. As Ms Dempsey-Clifford and the Disability Stakeholder Group have said, lead parties should be assigned responsibility on how to account for a strategy. It would be helpful if all Departments could take seriously the way in which a strategy is translated down into local work plans. They can take a high level goal that is articulated in a strategy and ask what it means for their area of work. They can then state what they will do over the coming two to three years and then report on this.

The Senator mentioned the Disability Act. It probably would be timely to review that Act, given that it is almost 20 years old. Within the Act, there is provision for sectoral plans whereby Departments or sectors are asked to set out an action plan as to how their services will be delivered to disabled people, both their mainstream services and then what they will do to put in some tailored, specialist or bespoke services, and how they will resource that. Then the Act provides for regular reporting to the Government, to a committee such as this, on the implementation of those plans. That would be very useful to look at as the next strategy is developed because it provides us with a steady blueprint or road map for action.