Dr. John Hillery:

I think the Senator's first question was about integration and how that can happen. Simply, it is about having leadership, governance and a single point of contact for those who are looking for help. As regards that single point of contact, I would think in my simplistic way that with modern IT we could do that fairly easily, but I know it is not that easy and we do not have a national IT system for the health services as yet. There are other ways of doing it at a local level. We were discussing earlier today in our office how there are many large buildings around the country where all the agencies we have been discussing this evening actually share the building. It should therefore be possible for them to hold meetings at which they look at referrals and decide where they should go and who should see whom rather than people ending up on a few different lists or somebody who may have some issue such as dyslexia acting out in class because of dyslexia and ending up being referred to CAMHS when really they need an educational assessment and support in the school. I am saying it should be simple; it obviously is not because it has not happened. It is about leadership and governance at a local level. Does that answer that question?