Mr. Bernard O'Regan:

I and my colleagues here and across the CHOs share the Deputy's frustration regarding a lot of the things she referred to. Eighty-five percent of the services that are provided in specialist disability services are provided by voluntary organisations. They are an essential and very valuable part of the service fabric. Many of those organisations were founded at times when the State was not providing any services and grew from being voluntary to where they are now. They face significant challenges, some more than others, in terms of funding.

Regarding the core budget, we have an allocation of about €2.5 billion for disability services for 2023. That is allocated to the CHOs and the organisations through their service agreement arrangements or in some instances, done on the basis of invoicing. There is a bit of variety there. We make that funding available to the CHOs for them to be able to allocate. When there are announcements such as the one in the budget around the pandemic payment for section 39 staff or the inflation fund, the Department agrees protocols, mechanisms, rules or criteria by which that funding is to be done. On the pandemic payment, eligible section 39 organisations got packs. They have completed their submissions. Where their documentation was completed in full, the payments are being processed. There are some organisations where the documentation is incomplete or has not been returned. As they are completed, they will be processed.

Regarding the once-off inflation fund, the Department has been in correspondence with the HSE before and since Christmas. Some details are being worked out relating to the process. I will come back with clarification but according to my most recent update, once a process is agreed with the Department, it will be looked at in early February - that payments will be released to organisations. That was a week ago. I do not know if everything was put in place for that kind of timeline to work but I will come back if there is any further clarity about it. It is in the HSE's interest that this funding is provided to those organisations because in some cases, we have to provide some funding on a cash acceleration basis-----