Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the guests who are the last four of nine we will have heard this morning. I ask the Chairman, as it has been an important opportunity for each of the groups but also for each of us, if he proposes to act on the information provided? It should not only be about airing one's concerns and hopes it is what actions the committee might take. I do not want to be prescriptive but my view is that we should made a case, as a committee, to the Minister, on a number of the recommendations we have heard or else the exercise will not have a real purpose. That is what I would like to see happen. I will take them in reverse order.

I thank Ms Caroline Lynch. I have had the pleasure of meeting Ms Angela Edghill who brought me up to speed recently on the work of the Irish Hospice Foundation. I concur that there should be no further cuts in the budget and that the levels for 2012 be maintained. The budget is already down to €78 million from €81 million in 2011. I hope the committee will make a case for the budget. In a week when we are facing into the children's referendum on Saturday, I fully endorse one of the priority recommendations in regard to the appointment of the outstanding or remaining five children's out reach nurses. That would be hugely important and I fully endorse that case.

On the National Federation of Voluntary Bodies, I acknowledge the voluntary basis, the community basis, of the component parts of the organisation. I very much welcome the reaffirmation that parents not only have a strong role in governance over the various entities within the federation but their voice is an essential and valued perspective going forward. May we have a brief profile of the 650 school leavers accommodated within the current year? It is to the great credit of the organisation that it has been able to accommodate school leavers within the budgetary restraints that it has had to manage, recognising that it is not only a 15% cut in the past four years but, as rightly pointed out, when added to the cut of €3.7 million this year, plus PRSI, VAT and other increases, the real impact in 2012 is of the order of €44 million as against the €33 million suggested. I wish the organisation continued success in all its work and I hope this short opportunity today will bear fruit.

I ask Mental Health Reform not to drop the ball on mental health. I thank Dr. Shari McDaid for his presentation. I acknowledge his contribution to members in the past 24 hours, along with another interested colleague, on the whole area of mental health provision. I heard him say yesterday and again I note from his contribution today that he is working on the basis that the €35 million that was mysteriously found in the back pocket of the jeans worn by the Minister State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch was somehow expended. I have used this imagery previously and I will surely be in trouble with Cork Deputies if not with the Minister of State herself. Dr. Shari McDaid is working on the basis that this might be applied for the current year but I believe the case for its employment in the current year is almost hopeless, that we have lost it. Given the overall decrease of 1% in funding for mental health provision in the current year, the situation is grave as I do not see that €35 million being put back into use in the current year. While we would hope it will be in play for 2013 and as early as possible, will Dr. McDaid elaborate on that issue? He is hoping to have €35 million now and another to follow in 2013. I wish that were so but it is important that is emphasised.

To Ms Maria Corbett of the Children's Right Alliance I say well done on all its work. I hope we are looking at happy days post the referendum on Saturday next. Given the stark facts she shared with us, almost one-fifth of all children in Ireland were living in households with an income below the poverty line in 2010. That is a serious matter. No matter what is achieved on Saturday there is a huge body of work to be done in order to provide for the rights of children as I understand it. I concur with her that we want to see the UNCRC incorporated into Irish domestic law and that it is not only that children's best interests will be taken into account when the State is taking cases on custody, access and guardianship but also it has a case to answer for its failure to provide for the needs of children in education, health and all the other areas.