Joe Flaherty (Fianna Fail)

For the purpose of this, if I go with what was on the opening statement, it is 2,707 people and a budget of €60 million. It is costing €22,000 per person to run the service. To give a comparable example of a local authority, I would say that what the trust has to do is comparable with County Longford.

It has a population of 40,000 and, between revenue and capital a budget of €140 million but then, most astonishingly, there is still a staff of 716 people for 2,500 people. I know the service is picking up the pieces and trying to rebuild. I am ideologically opposed to charities and bodies doing this work, and perhaps the Government should do it, but we certainly do not seem to be getting good value for money. The total spend by Longford County Council per head of population is €1,600 yet it costs the trust €22,000, on average, per service user, to deliver that service. I appreciate that some service users have addictions so require more intensive assistance. However, the service has a lot of straightforward tenancies so there should be no problem. Longford County Council manages 2,200 tenancies. Did the trust benchmark itself against other bodies that provide these services? Do our guests admit that €22,000 per service user is an extraordinary figure?