Mr. Michael Doyle:

I will add to what Mr. Dalton has said. He has talked about his personal experience of personalised budgets. It is a challenge for anyone to take it on because of the bureaucracy involved with it. Our vision of a personalised budget is not really what is being seen at the moment as uplifting services that people are receiving and looking for them to manage themselves within a framework. That is not a personalised budget model as recognised internationally, where I should have an holistic approach that would have support for the individual to do activities and to live their life the same as anyone else.

In relation to the PA service, a PA service is a personalised budget with support in place. It is about supporting a person through their life through what they need at a point in time. People who receive PA services are not ill. They are not people who are unwell. They are people who need support to live independently to do the activities that everyone in this room, on that side of the table, takes for granted. That is what we need to look at. This is a service to enable people to participate in society, to participate in employment or in education, to be part of the community and to be a contributor to society. That is the model of a PA, and whether it is through a PA model or a supported budget model, it is what we are trying to achieve through the legislation the Disability Federation of Ireland, DFI, is working towards putting in place and through a full recognition of the real value of a PA service. It is not a home support service. It is not keeping somebody safe in their home for a period of time and making sure they are okay. It is about allowing them to live their lives in their communities.