Mr. Brian Miller:

DESSA was established in 2001 by the then Department of Social Welfare. At that time, the Department had considerable funding to develop local community development projects to build up communities and to develop economic capability in local communities. In 2001, the Department wanted a specialist support agency to ensure the local community development projects would be inclusive of people with disabilities. DESSA was established with a fund from the Department, and that is how it commenced. Many years were devoted to working with community development projects under area partnerships to ensure they were inclusive. That is the origin of DESSA. We did apply for and get funding for other short-term funding projects, such as the LAC project. We engaged on that because we believed it was moving towards what DESSA was trying to do, which was, on the one hand, to make the mainstream services in any local community inclusive. We also thought that LAC would provide a real demonstration project, with a local co-ordinator, local activity and engagement with different community projects, that would open doors and include people with disabilities. What has happened is that the UNCRPD has changed the game in that it has strengthened the framework through which all of us now have to consider disability and inclusion. It has provided pressure and a structure to ensure we are all trying to include and consider what is involved in it. The aim of the mainstream policies for people with disabilities, such as New Directions, was to change the disability provision system to move towards the community. What DESSA was trying to do was prepare the community for that inclusion.