Mr. Owen Collumb:

On the frustration with the demonstration projects, the delivery of the task force is way behind anything we ever expected. The fundamental point behind setting up the demonstration project was to bridge the gap between the person with the disability or disabled person and the funder. We have been asking for funding to come directly from the HSE into our own companies which we have set up, or which Fionn set up. It cuts out a lot of the work between service providers and administration. We are prepared to run our own companies after some training and employ our own staff, do payrolls and be accountable for that money and have our accounts audited each year. ÁT is a broker system. We believe we would leave the broker system eventually having added more capacity and been aware of what direct payment was and have payment from the HSE into our own accounts which would be audited once a year. We would be accountable for that and go through all due process. Some people have budgets already which are really restrictive and offer them packages where someone comes into their home from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. whether they need them or not. They spend that amount of time in their home and then they leave the disabled person who may not even have needed to spend money on that occasion. We are asking for a more flexible service where funding makes a direct pathway to the individual. We manage it and we will probably find better value which is what we found from our study with NUI Galway.