Mr. Seán Ó Foghlú:

The Minister published a three-year strategy and action plan in September 2016 and followed it up with an annual plan in late January. We are working on the basis of quarterly reporting on activities and on the basis of an annual report on actions. We find it very valuable to be able to plan in a joined-up way for the education and training sector. It is effectively a plan for us and our national agencies combined and we are seeking to do it in partnership with them. There is a wide range of different aspects across all areas. One of things we are trying not to get lost in, although it is important, is the issue of resources being the only thing. Yes, there is a dependency on resources to expand provision but everything does not depend on additional resources. We must look at how we can work resources; be more efficient, which is the business of this committee; decide to stop funding areas; change funding; and seek to increase funding having regard to the resources available to us. It gives us a coherent way to seek to do that. There are different challenges in each of the different sectors. There are challenges for the Department and the national agencies in terms of prioritising. We would operate a number of overlapping strategies within the action plan. An example of that would be the national skills strategy, whose actions are embedded in it, or the literacy and numeracy strategy. We have a number of those.