Mr. Liam O'Sullivan:

I thank the Chairman for acknowledging the role played by family carers. We reckon that 360,000 people provide such care and they continue to do so. Even when there is a good homecare package there usually is a family member who steps up to the plate in terms of the relationship with the care providers and the public health nurse. Ideally, if we had a more well developed primary care system more of that work would fall to professionals.

The Chairman made a point about respite care. The evidence is clear and the figures do not lie. There has been almost a 40% reduction in the provision overnight respite care. I cannot fully understand what that is about. Is it about regulation? Is it about the HSE getting out of that work because it is difficult to do well?

The Chairman asked how needs are assessed. We would like that information. We know from our research that assessments are done in different ways. We asked the HSE to tell us how long people must wait but their people in many of the regions could not tell us. We asked for a figure on the length of gap between the assessed clinical need and provision. Unfortunately, many units were unwilling or unable to give the information, which is beyond belief. The HSE's service plans from 2010 to 2018 have referenced the idea of developing a single assessment tool. It remains unclear to us why this has not been rolled out to date.