Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am very much in favour of funding to heighten awareness and more needs to be committed in that regard. The HSE ran a media campaign for the Little Things initiative. The campaign is being developed for priority groups and its website had 1.5 million page views in 2016. Those groups are looking for funding. What level of future funding has been allocated for them? A lot of the page views were by people looking for services they needed. There are priority groups. What is the HSE going to do in this regard? Many people accessing the website were very concerned by issues.

How many of the 120 assistants for whose recruitment €5 million has been allocated to primary care have been recruited to date?

It is very confusing that there are nine regional CHOs and there does not seem to be a budget for them. A local authority gets its budget every year and works through it. I could give many examples of cutbacks in my area of Carlow-Kilkenny. Who is responsible for the cutbacks? Who is making those decisions? If the CHO does not have a budget, who decides to cut the services - such as weekend and overnight services - that I know have been cut?