Ms Clodagh Whelan:

We are definitely in a different space for people living with dementia from ten years ago. Right now, that gentleman would have a dementia adviser in his county which he would not have had ten years ago. There would be a greater understanding in his local community so people might recognise the signs and symptoms of dementia quicker and be able to support him. There is now a lot of linking in with public health nurses and the integrated care programme for older persons, ICPOP, teams in the community. People with dementia have an improved pathway. He would, hopefully, have better access to ASI services. Our services have grown, particularly our funding has increased under this Government.

The big difference for that gentleman is that there is now the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act. The State would now ensure that someone would be appointed to support him to make decisions, which we think is really important. As an organisation we support people living with dementia and we support family carers and, interestingly, when we talk about the Act and the Decision Support Service, across the board people living with dementia have been extremely welcoming of the Act and are really positive about the changes. For example, ten years ago someone could have decided what was the best interest for that gentleman. Now, under the new legislation, it is his will and preference so someone will have to understand what he wants. Ten years ago, a diagnosis of dementia would have assumed that he would not have had capacity. Now, there is a functional capacity approach. So we would assume he has capacity until we learn otherwise and that is really important.

I echo what Ms Duffy said about the administrative burden on family carers. That is absolutely reported to us regularly.

There is an administrative and financial burden but for people living with dementia, the Decision Support Service would help that gentleman now and it would not have been in existence ten years ago.