Mr. Laurence Bond:

The workshop was hosted by us and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. We made some of the inputs. The key thing to note is that the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform called officials from Departments together to address these issues, which is a very positive development. This arises out of work we have been doing with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform over the past period. The Department recognises that there is a programme for Government commitment to proofing and so, therefore, it has a responsibility to address that aspect. It has been trying to engage with that and, as Dr. Murphy pointed out, to identify ways in which it can be meaningfully advanced through the existing processes, for example, in respect of the spending review, the social impact assessment and the performance budgeting framework that is in place in the Estimates. Having said that, the Department has not overstated expectations in terms of what might happen this year, but it does seem important that there would be some specific equality statement in this year's budget as a concrete embodiment of the commitment in the programme for Government and that this is meaningful in a certain way. The workshop arose out of that understanding of work being done in the Department and work we have done with the Department. It was then part of bringing that out to budget officials in the line Departments to ensure that there was that common understanding referred to by Dr. Murphy.