Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator McGreehan. I came into the Department at the start of last year. As the national strategy for housing for people with disabilities had been published, I worked with the officials to bring the implementation plan up to date. It was something I felt very strongly about and we published that. I tried to make it in real time. Within that, we have each of the housing and disability steering groups to bring in all of the local authorities. They are required to report every quarter to the national disability inclusion strategy steering group which is under the chairmanship of the Housing Agency. They have reported already for quarter 3 of last year and have just reported for quarter 4 as well. Furthermore, the first annual report relating to the implementation will be prepared in quarter 3 of this year. I also have asked the Housing Agency to commence a review of the overall strategy, as distinct from the implementation, and to start the review in quarter 2 of this year. I wanted to give some time in terms of the implementation plan being in place with a completion before the end of this year. Effectively, there are a number of elements. First the strategy itself, which is going to be reviewed by the Housing Agency overall. The review will start in quarter 2 of this year. In addition, we have an inflation plan that was published in June of last year and we have quarterly reporting from all of the local authorities and the housing and disability steering groups. That goes in every quarter and there are reports for two quarters so far. Furthermore there are 107 actions so as of now, about a quarter of those actions are approximately 70% complete and about 46% of those are 50% complete. They are being monitored quarterly by the national housing steering group.

We have a structured format in place and ultimately national disability inclusion strategy steering group meets five to six times per year. It met on 4 March and considered the latest reports from all of the local authorities and steering groups.