Mr. David Doyle:

Mr. McLoughlin mentioned the transitioning of school leavers. Parents are frustrated every year to have to wait until the end of August and sometimes into September to see whether their child can access day services. I experienced this professionally and personally ten years ago when my daughter went through the process. This has been highlighted for a long time. We know that people will leave school at 18 years so why can the Government not plan properly for that eventuality? To be fair, the local CHOs now have early profiling, which is done in conjunction with the service providers, but the money does not come down. Can someone make a phone call to have HSE send the money early so that the CHOs know how much funding they have to spend and can assess how many people they must accommodate and they, in turn, can let the providers know, and start planning? The CHOs could plan nine months ahead if they knew the budget that was coming. All we need to resolve the matter is to ring the hierarchy of the HSE and ask them to send the money as we know much the service will cost and how many people will leave the school this year who are going to need the service. The profiling, which is now done earlier in September, October or November, will indicate the service that is needed. My main argument is that the difficulty is not at a local level. Why is the allocation not made earlier? It is so frustrating for families.

As a complaints officer within the organisation, I hear the frustrations of families down to the wire every year. It is within members' remit as Deputies and Senators to push that on.