Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Ms Cotter very much. I will speak now but I appreciate that there are other members also wishing to come back in.

On Ms Cotter's own alliance, its members have mentioned that there are 30 not-for-profit organisations. I believe it is even more than that. These are all household names such as Acquired Brian Injury Ireland, the Alzheimer Society of Ireland, Chronic Pain Ireland, Epilepsy Ireland, Enable Ireland, the Irish Hospice Foundation, the Irish Heart Foundation, the Huntington's Disease Association of Ireland and Headway Ireland. These are organisations we are all familiar with and we have all contributed to them or supported them at different times. She mentioned that there are 860,000 people living with a diagnosis of a neurological condition, with 50,000 people diagnosed with a condition each year. It is a big issue in Ireland and for her organisation but, more importantly, for its members. She outlined some of the challenges which face people who have a stroke. It is basically things like learning to speak, and it can be for a child or an adult. It can be where a person cannot walk or get up, or where a person can get into a chair but cannot get out of one, or get out of bed, go to the toilet or button his or her shirt. These are all the basics we expect we can do but are then faced with this challenge. The bigger challenge then is to look around for services and support and it is clearly not there.

We know that the organisation has a strategy in place but clearly the strategy is from 2019 to 2021 and we are now in 2024. There is probably a need for a new strategy but on the strategy which is currently in place, we know that two of the teams which have been established out of the nine are missing key staff, where the other areas have not been filled. The frustrating thing for anyone who is listening in and for us as members is that we have a strategy but we do not have the resources or the funding to implement that strategy. That, in itself, merits another meeting of this committee. We are all asking questions of the group which is coming in to highlight the weaknesses and gaps in the current strategy and services and that needs to be followed through. The NAI talks in its opening statement about the 300 beds. Is that 300 beds from the last strategy? What would be the alliance's view or opinion on the number of these acute beds we need now which are a follow-up for people who have had a stroke or developed a condition, which spreads across all of the areas covered by members of the alliance?