Mr. John Fitzmaurice:

Circumstances have changed in the last 12 months. We can be thankful that the Covid pandemic has not had the same impact. From a community perspective, we have also had service developments in terms of programmes such as integrated care programmes for older people through which we have extended community provision, allowing us to re-examine the way we deliver our services. Within that, we are looking at a bed configuration within St. Brendan's that would allow for a focus on maintaining people and supporting them to stay at home. That presents an opportunity to remodel the way we do our services. Like everything, we are looking at through a fresh lens and trying to find a solution together. We have looked at how we could potentially remodel internally as well. That is part of our solution. St. Brendan's was mentioned. It is a phenomenal and fantastic site that is very important to the people of Loughrea. What we are now trying to do is to maximise the use of the resources that are there. We want it to become a site for older people that is a standard bearer. My team and the older persons team within our CHO are committed to that. I can certainly say that developments within the community as regards enhancing community care and integrated care programmes for older people have allowed us to re-examine the potential for this development.