Ms Caroline Walker-Strong:

It is not around names on a list; it is about numbers. It is about where are the people geographically. The idea of a register would not sit well with any of my members, particularly for all the reasons the Deputy outlined around data and privacy. There are lots of other elements that can be impacted if there are names on a list but we do not even have the numbers. We do not know where geographically in the country people who have needs are. We have a rough idea at local level and a lot of the local networks would be able to tell us what their waiting lists look like. We keep talking about this future planning but how are going to do that when we do not know? We need to get to a point where we can geographically say, for example, that this number of children were born in 2025 in Galway. They may not all stay in Galway of course. As Ms McGrory said, we have a lot of people coming into the country as well and that needs to be taken into account too. We are currently not counting, however, and we need to start counting.