Ms Lucianne Bird:

In National Learning Network we are kind of the end users. People who come to us have PAs. We do not provide the service. Our sister company, Rehab Care, provides home care and I think we employ personal assistants in one location. We also provide PAs in a few of the higher education organisations, but they are more academic personal assistants to enable people to access education. I highlighted the inadequacies in the system, including long waiting lists and the hours not being long enough. For many people, their PA is their voice, their arms and legs and their means of coming out of their house and being part of society in so many ways. It is a vital service. As I said, there are many inadequacies in the system currently. When we are providing educational training, we can use one PA effectively to perhaps meet the needs of more than one person with a disability. Synergies can be achieved in the use of resources. We are constantly trying to use resources well on behalf of the State. We do not necessarily want a classroom where every person has a PA. We look at the needs in that classroom and how they can best be met through the use of a personal assistant system as opposed to individual PAs. There are different ways of maximising the available resources.