Mr. John Kinnane:

NESC is involved in a discussion. The fundamental aspect is setting out the dimensions and what we are trying to capture within them. What flows from that is the selection of the indicators. NESC has an input regarding the dimensions, or what should be captured, and the indicators. I am not involved in the NESC process so I am not entirely clear about its current position. We make a presentation to NESC to outline how the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform can have an input, take the work and embed it within our own work in the coming years. There is an internal discussion in the interdepartmental group considering the selection of indicators. Some of the proposals on indicators are subjective and others are objective. Some of them are already available but they are not available annually. There are surveys that are carried out over years rather than annually. The types of issues that are being discussed internally relate to the balance between objective and subjective and the question of how subjective indicators, if we are to opt for them, will be measured. We are still at the stage where the initial selection of indicators is being made. The plan is to have a relatively focused set of indicators for each of the dimensions but, over time, as we expand this aspect within the broader policy-making and budgetary work, the objective is to have clear linkages between the indicators that sit below the overall framework and the indicators that are being captured at a national level.