Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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I picked out a couple of things in respect of respite services, which is something we are all more than aware of in our areas. The second last paragraph on page 5 of the correspondence states: "However, a significant underlying challenge relates to the latent unmet need for residential and respite care, which exists in our services because of the absence of multi-annual investment during the economic downturn." It goes onto to state: "This is forcing [community healthcare organisations] CHO’s to procure new residential services on a single placement basis only at substantially higher cost than could be achieved through an appropriately commissioned multi-annual investment programme." We will always be playing catch-up with this unless we have that multi-annual investment programme. The correspondence does not go on to expand on that. Maybe we could ask Mr. Mitchell to expand on it. Has the HSE done any work on what a multi-annual investment programme would look like and cost? Has work been done on that in the Department?

The second matter I picked up on, which the Cathaoirleach has repeatedly raised, relates to the number of dentists and the number of dental treatment service scheme, DTSS, contracts as of September 2023. One of the things we looked for and have not yet got, as far as I know - I did not see it - is the current population per CHO area. We talked about that only last week. The most recent figures we have available date from 2011, but CHO 7 was numerically the largest CHO area in the country. While CHO 4 was the second most populous, CHO 7 has had a stronger profile of growth since then so it will be substantially bigger. When we look at the contracts as of September 2023, I would like to match that against something. Matching it against the population criteria is quite important because then we can actually see what is going on. They are just numbers if we do not have something to match them against.

It is also about distribution. The Cathaoirleach has raised the issue of the lack of any dentists in the County Laois area many times. Distribution within CHO areas is a different thing, but we do not have dentists to begin with. CHO 7 has 90 dentists. All the other CHOs are smaller than CHO 7, but CHO 4, for example, has 196 dentists. There is a substantial difference there, yet there is not a great population difference between those CHO areas. The Cathaoirleach will get the point I am making. We need that information to have something to base it on.