Ms AnnMarie Farrelly:

In terms of projecting housing need, it is what we do. It relates to our county and city development plans where we project the six-year need in line with the development plan we are delivering. That is looking at social and private housing need. It is a fairly macro-assessment and it does not go down into the five categories of disability. Of course, some of our standing housing meets the needs of those with a disability. For those with a physical disability, we think the future stands with universal design and universal accessibility. If all of our housing supply meets that standard, to an extent we are future-proofing for all of our counties and cities. We are not there yet but it is good to have the pilot started. It is becoming more recognised through our steering groups that that is the future for meeting the needs of social housing for those with physical disabilities.

Certainly, there have been many instances, as the previous speaker mentioned, where the care package is not available when the housing allocation is ready. Typically, we can work through that. The interagency responsibility obviously kicks in well in advance of a house being ready for allocation. There can be exceptions but we generally work it through so that it does not cause an undue delay with an allocation, but it should not cause any delay. Social workers engaged by us and funded by the Department can work in that space in terms of making sure that care packages are available. We are getting better at that. I do not think it arise as regularly as it might have in previous times but our position would be that it should not happen at all.

The Senator asked Mr. Hanrahan a direct question. I might ask him to respond.