Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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Obviously, they are taking on a degree of responsibility when they are referring so they would need to have an appropriate qualification and they must be a triage person because they would have to be able to detect if it is much more serious than the person presenting says it is. For example, has the person suicidal ideation? The person at the other end of a phone line would need a level of qualification. The challenge is actually making the directory of services available because a lot of these organisations are opening up and collecting money through voluntary activity. Some of them are funded by the HSE while others are not. We need to streamline that. It is about creating the directory.

To answer Deputy O'Connell's concern, the GP will still be very central and the focus of all of this and will use this directory. However, some people will choose to ring a phone line and not go to their GP, so we are trying to cover all angles. Is it a complement or an add-on to existing services? Again, it is both but it is mainly to complement the existing services. Again, it is about how we do it, what we do and doing it better as opposed to continuing to do what we have always done.

Deputy Durkan asked about the presentation of budgets and programme heads. I was in the Department during the week preparing for this meeting. Some of the officials there mentioned to me that Deputy Durkan has been very consistent in his querying and challenge to have this presentation done. The challenge is acknowledged and recognised. Basically, it is a case of syncing the Department's accountancy practice with the HSE. The HSE is developing a new model of financial accountancy and presentation. Once that is done, the Department can tie into it. I apologise that we are still on the outdated model this year but we live in hope. Certainly Deputy Durkan's consistency in highlighting this has been acknowledged and recognised and has been instrumental in forcing the change to come about.

Deputy Durkan made a very interesting point about home help, carer's allowance and tying up between the two Departments. It is something of which I am aware as a practising politician but I am not sure I was aware of it in my role in a Department as a Minister of State. As the Deputy knows, we are trying to devise a statutory scheme to provide home care and to make sure that people can get it as a right as opposed to the current haphazard arrangement where a lot of it is down to a postal code lottery.

As things stand, a lot depends on waiting lists, queues etc. We want a system similar to the fair deal scheme, where everybody is entitled to the service. People will merely have to go through the formalities of the paperwork and they will get it. To accomplish that, several challenges must be met. Obviously we have to upskill the workforce and make sure it is sufficient to deliver the service. We must also ensure that there is transparency and-----