Mr. Damien McCallion:

On the roadmap, I hear the point. It is an important one in trying to take a wider, holistic approach. There is a danger that the system will be seen as trying to offload or, as the Deputy said, patronise. We will take that sentiment back because I presume it is something that the Deputy is picking up as a concern. That is clearly not the intention. It is not what we want to do. Given the variety of people involved in delivering the services – voluntary providers, section 38 bodies and section 39 bodies – it is really important that that message does not get out through the system.

On the schools side, there was agreement. We had a number of meetings with officials from the Department of Education to look at reinstating some of the therapists in the schools. I refer to some of the new schools. We agreed to a model based on thirds. The aim was to try to restore one third very quickly, recruit a third very quickly from existing panels to fill them and get the final third from a process kicked off internationally to try to expand the pool of therapists available, not just for disability services but also mental health services, which comprise one of our biggest challenges, and the wider primary care side. Again, I must flag that only some of the special schools had the service previously. It was historical, as the Deputy alluded to, so it is not necessarily equitable. The point of the community teams is that they are based on a population-in-need model so they can in some way start to balance. We are well short at the moment in terms of the numbers we need, and hence we have to look at all possible ways in which to expedite getting more therapists into the community teams. Broadly speaking, notwithstanding the discussions on the schools, people are behind, as a principle, in trying to provide services, but we are-----