In a debate of this sort we may tend to talk to each other and to be at cross-purposes. I share some of the sentiments expresed by Deputies Wyse and O'Hanlon but I would refer them to paragraphs (d) and (e):
(d) to promote, encourage and assist, whether by means of the provision of financial or material aid, personnel or services or otherwise, in local communities the establishment and development of voluntary social services for those communities,
(e) to promote, develop, encourage and assist, whether by means of the provision of financial or material aid, personnel or services or otherwise, co-operation in relation to social services between boards, and other bodies, established by or under statute and voluntary organisations.
The board will encourage and assist and promote. They will have an opportunity to provide money and therefore to assist some of the desirable objectives outlined by Deputy Wyse in relation to local bodies doing local work well. When it comes to doing fundamental research on poverty and social deprivation and other broader social issues I am anxious that the board would not be engaged in those areas. That is work for the proposed combat poverty organisation. It would be work requiring great intensity and exceptional expertise. It will be quite separate from the valuable work of the National Social Service Board.
However, it will be part of the board's work to create more public awareness and to disseminate information with that in view. The board will advise on existing social services. They will have their hands full in the years ahead. The work of the board will remove the considerable uncertainty which has bedevilled our social service structure in the past 18 months or two years. They will be on a firm footing and should quickly be able to settle down to do their work quickly and effectively.
The amendment, I suggest, would be more appropriately aimed at the combat poverty organisation and I assure the two Deputies that I will be doing my utmost to ensure there will not be duplication and consequent waste of resources because all these issues are widely understood in the Departments of Health and Social Welfare.