Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I will just go through a number of other things. I know that this is the Public Accounts Committee but funding and service provision are opposite sides of the same coin. From newspaper reports and from talking to recipients of the service, there is a very definite feeling that the services are on a knife edge. There is a Catch-22 situation in that the HSE is trying to regularise issues in this particular organisation. In one particular case some of the donors are looking for their money back, which they did not intend to be used in the way it was. Whether that can happen is not for us to decide but I am just making the point. The people about whom I am most concerned are the sometimes very elderly parents of St. John of God's service recipients. Can we be absolutely sure that while this issue is being considered there will not be any loss of services to the people who need them? This would be as a result of St. John of God's being in difficulty because they are finding it hard to fundraise. I am really not concerned about the service provider. I am concerned about the service recipient here. I really have serious concerns about this.