Ms Renee Dempsey-Clifford:

Tying into a lot of that, one of the things that exercised the DSG regularly in looking at the strategy was that a number of actions are shared by a number of Departments, cross-cutting, and there was no lead Department to do that. In the absence of somebody having to answer for five other Departments or local authorities or whatever combination it might be, there was total inaction because if nobody is answerable, nobody will rush to answer.

The DSG has taken another very strong position. When we met the Minister of State with responsibility for disability and report to her, in the absence of the people who hold the purse strings at any of the meetings, a lot of it was talk. There is the three-dimensional understanding that would be needed for people. If a Department says, "We would love to do it but we cannot get it from the Department of Finance or the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform", the very strong view of the DSG is that the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform and-or the Department of Finance should be at least at the quarterly meetings with the Minister to hear what the community and the experts who assess how things are being done and the individuals are saying. At the end of the day, money is the thing that makes it all work or not.