Ms Caroline Timmons:

I will respond to Senator Boyhan's question on the housing disability steering groups. They are an important innovation because, as members would have heard last week at the committee meeting, it is very important that the awareness at local authority level is increased because if it is before one, one takes more notice. The allocations process does not happen at departmental level, that happens at the local authority level. The Department is very conscious that this needs to be happening and the point of having the four disability sectors represented on those committees is exceptionally important. Even setting up these committees up in the first stage was a very good step but I think the point that Senator Boyhan is getting is whether they are working effectively. The Housing Agency has been given the specific task to work with them and has been doing a lot of work with them in the past year in particular to look at their terms of reference to ensure they are functioning properly, they are meant to meet four times a year and be chaired by their director of housing. I think what the Housing Agency is currently doing is making sure that they are working, and to work out the percentage of housing they need to provide, to ensure that they are conscious of who they need to allocate to and are making plans for that allocation. They have all done their strategic plans now, and they are all available. If the Senator wanted that information, we could get them for him