Mr. Ciar?n Devane:

Having spoken to the chief executive about it last night, we are still hopeful that it will come. There has been some progress in recent weeks. That is essential for us because it will allow us to identify the direction of travel, the envelope in which we can operate, how we will handle agencies and so on. If we can have that agreed framework between ourselves, the Department and the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform, that will be incredibly helpful because then we can performance manage ourselves, our section 38 organisations and so on to those numbers.

It is not there yet and I gather it is closer than it was.