Mr. John Dolan:

I thank the Deputy for his kind remarks. At least he has the good grace not to be sitting in my old seat.

The Deputy asked about the 1% cut. A sum of €40 million in accumulated deficits across a number of disability organisations was reported to the Joint Committee on Health last year, prior to the crisis. At the start of this year, we were flabbergasted to find that another 1%, or €20 million, was to be taken out of the budget as an efficiency measure. Representatives of the DFI met the then Minister for Health on 20 May last and he indicated quite clearly that the cut was not going to be triggered or operated this year, that it would not be possible to do so. The then Minister asked us for a number of days' grace before we would say anything about it in public. We subsequently wrote to the then Minister on at least two occasions and have still not received a clear response, in black and white, to state simply that the Department is confirming that the proposed cut has been removed. That is where that matter stands and anything that members of the committee can do to get clarity on it would be a great support. That €20 million and other issues indicate that cuts were still being made to services at a time when Ireland was back at full employment and had a healthy economy, prior to Covid-19.