Ms Gráinne Loughran:

We do not have specific statistics. Anecdotally, however, we found that the recruitment embargo has had an impact across the board, be it in terms of home support or otherwise. It is a question of staff across the HSE in general. With regard to mental health, we found that older people must wait for quite a long time to access services such as counselling in their local communities. We have cited a Mental Health Commission report on mental health services that was produced in 2020, and we met members of the joint Oireachtas subcommittee on mental health last year. The report was quite damning in respect of mental health services for older people and, in this regard, referred to the lack of acute beds and the need for further action. There is quite a wide body of evidence in this area. The research carried out by Aware this week and supported by ALONE shows a slightly higher level of mental health difficulties among older women, but an issue we find with data like that is that older men are sometimes less willing to talk about the difficulties they are experiencing. There might be a range of factors that have an impact in this regard.