Dr. Susan Finnerty:

We are very hampered by the fact we do not have regulatory powers for community settings. We are very much looking forward to it being in the new Act. Community services will change when they are regulated and have to perform to regulations and are assessed. This will be a huge breakthrough in mental health services in the community. We are looking forward to this.

Deputy Murnane O'Connor spoke about the lack of community services for people who are independently living or semi-independently living. I covered this in response to an earlier question but I am very happy to do so again. The history is that when the institutions closed, whole wards were moved out into the community. We had very large groups of sometimes up to 20 or 30 people in the community but not of the community, if the Deputy gets my drift. What happened over time was that, while smaller units were being built and used throughout the country, the people in those units got stuck. There are several reasons for this.

There are two main reasons. One is that there are very few rehabilitation services. As I said to the other Deputy, there is only 48% of what should be in teams and there is only 35% of staffing that should be there. It is very difficult to move people on from those congregated settings into medium or low secure settings. People who manage to move on to independent or semi-independent settings may still need some support and may need rehabilitation services. Where there is a rehabilitation team, they would be covered by that team. With only 50% of the required level in teams, I have no doubt some people are not supported in their independent or semi-independent setting.