Ms Audry Deane:

Senator Dolan would be very aware that many of us have been working with the Department since 2000 urging it to define eligibility and entitlement to services. We still do not have that. I do not envy Laura Magahy and her small staff untangling that one because it is the legacy of the extremely bizarre hybrid system we have inherited and managed to devolve incrementally over the decades. We do not have a strong and robust eligibility and entitlement framework. Therefore, the HSE has a myriad of ways of looking at this. The nine CHO areas have different ways of measuring, allocating and prioritising need. This, quite frankly, is shocking - that a small territory of a few million people is unable to know what is happening and project adequately. Our colleagues have told the committee what is coming down the track. This has to stop. It needs to be addressed very quickly.