Mr. John Dunne:

When one comes in here, and particularly when one is asked to boil down our statements to five minutes, it is inevitable that one will throw out the negativity. It is worth acknowledging that millions of hours are being delivered. It is a valuable service and a life saver for people. There are individual care workers - not carers - within the system who provide an heroic service. We were not unique in this, but during the storms last year I had a difficulty because when a Status Red weather warning is issued, the rule is that services are cancelled. People were going out delivering meals and making unscheduled and unpaid calls to ensure the people they were looking after were catered for. That is the positive energy in the system and it is worth celebrating and acknowledging. Having said that, the system is not fostering or feeding that. I know where the Deputy is coming from in terms of looking at the positives as well. What I am looking at is the trajectory, which is going the wrong way. Dublin is broken. The Deputy mentioned the difficulties in terms of Dublin. We did not even bid to deliver home care services in the Dublin area this year because it is a zoo. This relates to the policies and systems that are in place. It certainly does not relate to the care workers and the clients.