Mr. Bernard O'Regan:

Between the HSE and the community of service providers, there is enough information and experience for them to be able to work together to produce some kind of estimate each year of what might typically arise in the course of a year. We do not necessarily know where it will arise but we could anticipate that there would be a certain level of changing need over the course of the year. The other thing I would say about some of the deficit situation for organisations like ourselves is that, in the past - and I do appreciate that it was in the past - when the HSE ran into financial difficulty, it was able to go back to the Oireachtas and get a supplementary allocation. We were never included in any of those supplementary submissions so our need, particularly for voluntary providers, was not necessarily included in the ask.