Ms Laura Keane:

I am responsible for the health and social care services of the Rehab Group. I welcome the words of the HSE, which confirm our compliance with the service arrangements in place. RehabCare is the health and social care division of the Rehab Group. We are a not-for-profit voluntary organisation and a registered charity. We are located in every county and structured to deliver our services through operational regions, with a devolved management responsibility and accountability. RehabCare has developed significantly and we are currently one of the main employers in the health and social care sector. We work closely and collaborate with the Health Service Executive disability services and services for the older person. We have developed a reputation for being a solution-focused can-do organisation which responds promptly and flexibly to complex situations, many of which involve people in crisis.

From a contractual perspective, we have 22 service level arrangements with additional grant aid agreements that we deliver. These contracts clearly set out budgets, performance targets, quality standards, monitoring and compliance requirements. Planned meetings take place on an ongoing basis to review compliance with service arrangements, formulate solutions for people in difficulty and consider key developments in networking and partnership. We have recorded 122 review meetings with the HSE to consider all the areas in which we deliver regarding compliance. We submit quarterly returns to the HSE regions in respect of key performance indicators and regional national returns such as complaints, Children First compliance, monthly respite key performance indicators and service user attendant records. That has been confirmed this morning.

Since 2008 RehabCare has experienced cuts of €6.4 million, in line with annual funding cuts across the sector. Naturally, cuts of this nature have a significant impact on the independent organisation, resulting in deficits for three years. However, we are committed to protecting front-line services and we implemented challenging cost-containment plans which resulted in our coming in line and managing within our budget for 2012 and 2013. Not only that, we also increased the number of service users by 838 during this time.

Our resource centres are our day facilities and there are 48 across the country, all of which are accredited with EQUASS assurance, or the European Quality in Social Services Award. We deliver services on a daily basis to 1,500 people attending those facilities. They have individual person-centred plans, programmes, outlines and goals in their lives to enable them to achieve their potential. There are seven respite centres, which are residential services with a two-pronged approach to supporting people with disabilities. Three of these deal with children and four deal with adults. We delivered 7,294 bed nights for people with disabilities in 2013. Within our residential services we support 219 people, with 79 having very complex care needs. In most cases, our services must have waking night duty and sleep-over staff. Many of the people in those services are unable to articulate needs and they must often resort to challenging behaviour to be able to communicate needs, which results in very difficult and challenging environments.

Our supported accommodation services support 140 people living in their own homes within communities. We support 962 people in the country with home services. In 2013, we delivered 190,569 hours of home support, which involves helping the person get out of bed in the morning, administering medication, providing meals and supporting the person in going to bed at night. Many of these people would not be able to survive in their own homes in the community without the support of our highly qualified staff. We provide individual packages of support to 85 service users and 22,560 hours of outreach services were delivered in 2013.

We do not only deliver and comply with contractual arrangements, as RehabCare is able to produce enhanced services and value for money. I will give one example before I finish, that of HeadsUp, a RehabCare service targeted at improving young people's mental health and well-being. HeadsUp was set up as part of a fund-raising and health promotion initiative for young people.

We have a free automated text support service which has been used by 28,709 people. We have a HeadsUp website which provides information on mental health issues, promotes positive mental health and provides information and support to those in need. In 2013, 53,731 unique visitors accessed the site. We train people to assist in suicide prevention programmes - there were 80 people last year - and 100 people were able to receive training in recognising and preventing suicide. We received a grant of €7,000 towards the HeadsUp service.

I have given examples of the added value that an organisation such as ours can bring. I shall hand over to my colleague, Ms Marie Kelly, from the health and social services division.