Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This has been a really good session. There were also some good points made at the end by Deputy Cairns in terms of the solutions. It is really important that we are solution focused. It is the whole purpose for us hearing from the witnesses today, and hearing what the asks are. It comes down to some really key points that were made about services in the community. It is really important that you are not bussing people out for hours on end, because that is unsustainable for a functioning service. It really is not too much to ask for. It is also really important that there is long-term planning. I know Senator Ruane touched on this, but I was delighted to see the detail in the Carlow submission on the SLT places. We need to have long-term planning. This is for 90 places. I was not aware of how low it is. One then thinks about where those 90 people are, but that is low to begin with. We also need a short-term solution. We know it is now at crisis level, with the number of waiting lists. We are not saying we will be able to solve all of those problems. I just want to say that. Obviously, we will be doing our report, which we will be sending to the Department and to the Minister, and hoping to see some of these changes. Some of the solutions are really staring us straight in the face. They are really straightforward. I often find myself saying in this place that there is a lack of common sense in so many of the systems and Departments. It is great to get that first-hand experience that we can put into our reports. I am sure that we will be in further contact too as a committee. I thank the witnesses for coming in. We are a committee that hears a lot of very personal stories. It is not easy for people to come in, and they should not have to come in and tell their personal stories. We certainly appreciate it and we understand that it is not easy, but it helps the work that we are pushing and campaigning for. We appreciate that.

It is proposed that the committee publish the opening statements on its website. Is that agreed? Agreed.