Mr. John Conroy:

Absolutely. Some 250 new clients enter our services across the country every week. This year, there are 16 full members of the alliance and ten applicant members so we represent 26 centres today. There are also other support groups reaching out to different communities. We have a footprint in every county in Ireland. We are certainly reaching out to every county. As I have said, 250 clients come to us every single week and, every week, 2,000 support hours are provided across the country so our impact across the country is very significant. What makes us unique is the optimal response times and that we are able to respond. If 250 people were entering another service, they might sit on a waiting list for six months. In the cancer support community, we try to triage people within five days. They have a support plan built around them immediately so that they can access services very quickly. Usually, people come in quite acutely distressed having been newly diagnosed. It is very important to us to react to that. Without an appropriate funding model, we may not be placed to meet those continuing needs.

In the case of Dóchas, we saw an 81% increase in new clients last year and a 103% increase the year before that. We are in a unique situation in that we moved from a part-time to a full-time service but every centre is seeing an increase. We are not seeing the number of clients walking through our doors slowing down. It is only increasing. The statistics suggest that cancer diagnoses are going to double by 2045. That means that our centres are only going to continue to get busier. We are also seeing the demographic profile of clients changing. We see people who have been rediagnosed or who have been given a further diagnosis of metastatic cancer. They are coming back into our services. There is a lot of re-engagement. It poses challenges across the board for us. We are rising to the challenges but it is getting more difficult.