Ms Rosemary Keogh:

The Deputy covered a number of matters. I will take each in turn before getting to the last one. He spoke about the telephone calls he had made to the hotels. If one rings any hotel in Ireland and asks if they have hoists, they will say they do not have them. I refer to what is unique about the IWA's model of service. I challenge the assumption that it is an experimental model. It has been in place for more than 18 months and it is constantly fully booked. We cannot keep up with the demand for the service. I believe we have gone past experimental at this point.

As regards the hotels we are working with in Kilkenny and those we will be working with in the new model for people who have previously visited Cuisle, we concluded the procurement process with those hotels yesterday. We will be able to provide the same number of bed nights that were HSE funded in Cuisle in 2019 and into 2020. That is 1,700 bed nights, and probably more than that as things grow.

With regard to equipment, hoists, beds and so forth, the IWA provides all the equipment in the hotel environment. If people wish to book a break through the IWA, they call our regional respite manager, say where and when they want to go and how many people wish to go. We go into great detail with them about their requirements, be it medication, clinical tasks, personal assistant service, equipment and so forth, and we provide it on site. The people who work for the IWA providing that service are part of our personal assistance services. The association provides 1.2 million personal assistance hours on behalf of the HSE every year. It is by far the largest provider of personal assistance services in Ireland. We know how to do this and we do it well.

In the context of the decision for the board and whether we could bring something back to the board if funding became available, if there is a realistic proposal on the table we will bring it back. We have not seen anything in that regard at this point. The only caveat I would add is that, at present, the estimate we have for the cost of works is €1.15 million. We are greatly concerned that if we start pulling down walls, ripping out fuse boards and so forth, the asbestos in the building will be disturbed. If that happens, we are facing an inestimable cost and the question of who will pay for it.