Ms Joan O'Donnell:

I am delighted to hear what the Deputy had to say. Our member organisations deliver services that are not even covered or understood by service agreements, which is the contract they signed with the HSE because these are very much what would be referred to as "soft" services. As Dr. McCarthy has pointed out, we have been grappling with the matter for a number of years. We have made an application under Sláintecare and we have our fingers crossed. We have been in contact with some people in NUI Galway and in Scotland who can use systems dynamic modelling, a process which shows what happens when one part of the system is removed - if one support is taken away, it shows what impact that might have on acute admissions, nursing home admissions and so on. We have our fingers crossed that we might be back here this time next year informing the committee as to what the exact impact has been. Obviously, that also relates to budgetary issues. If we do not get that funding, we might be back to the committee for-----