Dr. Niall Muldoon:

I will not take long. I am clear about how the HSE is responding regarding the SOP and the importance of quality versus quantity. We have always said that the assessment of need is the key to the door for the service. We want the door open regardless of the assessment of need. It is crucial that this happen, but the arguments that were made for the SOP that was implemented and has now been found to be less than accurate in terms of the legalities were that we would increase the number of services that were available to our children and reduce assessments from eight weeks to 90 minutes, thereby leaving more time for services to be provided. Over the past 12 months, I have asked three or four times for the number of children who entered services to see if that was happening. The SOP was first implemented on 1 January 2020. We now have two years of data, but there is no sense in the figures the HSE has laid out at this meeting that there has been a large increase in services as a result of that 90-minute SOP. If the witnesses can clarify whether I am wrong in this or that there are extra figures, I would be delighted to hear them.