Mr. Pat McLoughlin:

I do not mind taking some of those questions. I have already outlined the fact that, in the Alzheimer's Society of Ireland service level agreement with the HSE, it has not been able to pay its staff an increment. We took our cuts in 2010 and no member of staff has taken an increment since then in ASI.

Our allocation of hours is going down because we do not provide generic home care services so we did not get the tender. Our home care footprint is reducing by anywhere between about 8% and 12% each year.

I would absolutely support national minimum standards. The number of intensive home care packages at the moment for persons with dementia in the community is 178. That is not allowed to grow, as far as I understand, unless somebody dies or goes into residential care.

I totally support the idea of a separate regulator. What is going on at the moment is dreadful. If a respite centre provides one week of respite for somebody with dementia, a nurse is in charge right throughout the evening. Nobody else will be allowed to give a drug to the individual. There has to be a care pathway for it. There is nothing like that for the other 51 weeks of the year but, for that one week, the State gets very self-defensive about how it provides care. We absolutely support a separate regulator.

Over the five-year period that Deputy O'Reilly mentioned, we have moved our fundraising from about €2 million to more than €3 million and that is propping up the system.