Ms Frances Spillane:

The social protection service is provided for in legislation, but the legislation was not commenced. That is something we would want to look at. It depends on what one means by the advocacy service; if it is going to be run by volunteers, then that is very positive in that it does not have a cost. There are lots of people taking early retirement who would be very interested in becoming advocates, and that has been the experience of Sage. However, all that has to be thought through in terms of developing policy. That was one of the points we were trying to make in general; the first step is to develop policy, and then one does legislation, usually. There is not a clear policy on advocacy services from what I have seen. I note that the Department of Justice and Equality has a role, as well as the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection.