Mr. John Farrelly:

The conditions, in the first instance, are supposed to be specific to solve a particular risk. Waterford is a very good example of how things can go wrong in a system. If one tracks back over 20 years, with the closures of the different hospitals and the lack of community services, what one gets is people going into this place which is overcrowded and operating above capacity. The clinicians are afraid that if the person is outside, he or she will come to harm. There is a systemic issue, as well as a governance issue in the HSE, which we are raising with the HSE. There is a board in the HSE and mental health needs to be brought up the agenda. The old Government policy was that there was a national director for mental health. That person was taken out contrary to Government policy. Improving governance in community services is definitely an issue. We have done a large amount of work with community healthcare organisation area 5 in the past six or seven months. The decision for us was that this was really not good and something needs to stop. At the same time, we do not want to leave the families and residents in the lurch.