Mr. Ivan Cooper:

I thank the committee. I will not repeat or summarise what has been said. I will add that the members of The Whee, which are HSE funded under sections 38 and 39, understand we live in the context of limited resources and significant unmet need. We need to transition away from piecemeal ad hocresponses as we go along to a more strategic approach based on identifying the essential needs in communities. I draw attention to a potent observation made by Dr. McCarthy that this has to do with establishing the actual need in communities because unless we live in a perfect world, there will always be a quantum of unmet need. We need to have the courage to identify that there is unmet need in order to design services to meet the actual need that is there. The sector is enthusiastic about the opportunity to work in partnership that is presented by the independent review group's report and Sláintecare. We hope we will be invited to work in partnership with the Department and the HSE on understanding the need that is there and playing our part in delivering a much more effective service and advocacy role for voluntary organisations and the people they support.