Ms Bereneice O'Rourke:

I thank the Deputy. As an organisation within the sector, we call on the joint committee, Government and the HSE to work together on this. We do not have all the answers. We have come with recommendations we think are workable. We need to work through them collaboratively. As I have said, we have been in business for 17 years and have seen great change. I have never seen a crisis in recruitment like we have now. However, we do have solutions. We want to make caring a protected profession like nursing and social care work. We need to move on that fast. There is a real opportunity here. I am very hopeful we can make progress if we strip it back, look at what needs to be done, be practical about it and put value on the carer. The client is at the centre of everything we do, but without the staff we have nothing. We would welcome exploration of the recommendations we have made. That echoes through all of the witness statements we have heard today. There is opportunity here and it is good to see we are talking about these matters.