Mr. Reinhard Schäler:

We are members of the Neurological Alliance of Ireland and we work together and support each other's work. Perhaps Mr. Ó hUallacháin could say a little bit about the kind of clients that we have and talk a little about his own personal experience. We set up An Saol Foundation. When our son was in hospital I thought there must be something for a 23-year old who had a very severe accident. We thought there must be a service somewhere to look after him and help him. For months, I thought I was not looking hard enough. I met Ms Rogers at the time. She might remember that. I spent two or three days with Acquired Brain Injury Ireland in different centres. I talked to Headway on several occasions. They all told me they were very sorry but that no service is available for that level of injury.

We did not do it on our own as a family. It is hard to believe that there was nothing for somebody affected by a tragedy like that. Pádraig is over there. It was he who really inspired the whole thing. He showed us that he wanted to continue to live. It was like that. The families of most of our core clients were asked if they would donate their organs, because their life was going to be unbearable and they could increase the quality of somebody else's life.

There is a paragraph in the briefing document about the experience of other parents.

That is an outstanding example because we got it in writing this time. Most conversations happen as conversations and it is kind of hard to say afterwards whether something really was what was said. There is a mother who wanted to bring her son to a swimming pool and she needed a referral. Rather than getting the referral, she got a letter back from the head of the brain injury programme. We have the letter and the mother is happy to share it. Basically it said that there was no point in any further interventions and that the only thing her son needed was to be kept comfortable, which is another word for palliative care. It was not only the mother who received that letter; the consultant also sent the letter to all nine treating centres so that everybody who had been in touch with that patient knew to not touch him as it was not worth it, to forget about it. That same patient is in our centre now, is getting better and is putting bets on horses. There is fun. Tragedies are not all and only tragedies. This is something about which clinicians have a different view from families and the people who look at human rights, even if someone has a very severe injury and even if the clinicians have tried everything and say that someone cannot be cured.

In many people's minds, rehabilitation means that we get the person back to where he or she was before. That is not going to happen with most of our clients. In some cases. that has happened but with most of our clients, it does not happen. When we talk about the habilitation piece of the rehabilitation, we are trying to help people to live a life with severe acquired brain injury. It is not about getting rid of the severe acquired brain injury; it is about life and living with it. We are trying to help the people directly affected by it and their families to live as good a life as possible. Is that response okay for the Cathaoirleach?