Dr. Frank Conaty:

I thank the Deputy for his comments on universal design. He is absolutely right. One of the big challenges in that regard is what perfect universal design is into the future. However, that should not stop us doing what we can do now.

On what we do now in terms of how we will be going forward, we must embrace and use what we know now. One of the difficulties is that we are not even doing that. That is the starting point. Thereafter, we have to build agility into the design process. It is not something that stops; it is a continuum. We must build in continuous review and refigure what we know now and in the future and where we go at different points in the future. It is about using what we know now in the best way we possibly can and building in that agility and that requirement to be continuously flexible and questioning about design as we go forward. Crucially, it is not to do just with the physical environment, as I suggested earlier, but with everything, particularly services and how we deliver them, use of technology and so forth and how we do that in an integrated way. It is a challenge but we can get the best out of it if we build on the principle of utilising everything to the best advantage we can now and building in that agility and accepting that is a continuous process.