Mr. Bernard O'Regan:

The recruitment was not designed to happen this week in coincidence with this hearing. We had hoped to conduct the recruitment some time ago but the cyberattack had an impact on it. Getting it advertised to applicants and so on also contributed to some of the timing around it.

I must clarify that the Time to Move On report was about people living in disability specific congregated settings. Over the last number of years there has been a programme of implementation of transitions with the people who were included as part of that programme. The work that was done at the time did not include those in nursing homes because the focus was on services that were directly funded through the disability budget.

The Senator asked about the transfer of funding. For example, if people are funded through the fair deal scheme and have some funding ,why can that not be used? Dr. MacLellan might want to comment further on that. The funding of the fair deal, which is a statutory scheme, has a specific purpose through the older people's budget stream. It is not funding that can transfer with the person into a community setting. We need to be able to find new moneys to support the person in the community. Consequently, if somebody moves from a nursing home placement into another arrangement that can be supported then the fair deal funding is available for use by somebody else who might need it.