Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome both doctors. I want to get a greater understanding of the events that led to the entire board resigning. I am sure it was not something board members did lightly as professionals dealing with people with disabilities and the difficulties there and having indicated at an earlier stage that they could not continue to assess but took the commitments at their word. I also want to look to where we go forward and how the scheme needs to be fixed so we can provide the necessary supports and not force families into the situation they are in.

As a committee we have sought the correspondence on numerous occasions and the secretary to the committee has written to the Department of Finance and the Minister's office over a dozen times. We have raised this every week and sought all the correspondence in the Department on this but we have not got it. We made the point in private session that the Department stonewalling us on this issue is not acceptable. There was a verbal commitment that all correspondence would be given. Yesterday or in the last couple of hours we got some correspondence-----