Mr. Pat McLoughlin:

What works for us is fund raising. We have been consistently successful in growing our fund raising to €3.2 million, which is shoring up State services. On a positive note, the National Dementia Office is including persons with dementia and carers in all its working groups looking at diagnosis, post diagnosis, support and care pathways. However, when we come to negotiating the service-level agreement with the CHO areas or the HSE, that is just set at nought and there is no further funding. We also would be very supportive of the Understand Together campaign, which is raising awareness of dementia services. It raises awareness but those people ring a national help line provided by our volunteers six days a week who have to tell them that even though they have come forward, there is nothing for them if they are in a county with no services. We support Government policy in respect of the national dementia strategy. It is not mentioned in Sláintecare. We support all of the initiatives that Government and the National Dementia Office are undertaking. We have been included in it but we are simply not seeing any dedicated resource for dementia and no realisation of just what it is like to be a family carer or indeed a person with dementia.