Mr. Joe Meany:

With regard to breaks and the after-hours service, the respite would be our only break, but that is for a limited number of families – six, as I said. Regarding after hours, as Mr. Boyle said, the resources allocated to day services are roughly 30 hours per week. We try to offer those supports if and when the person chooses to have them outside the 30 hours a week. In other words, if they want them on a Saturday or something like that, they can have them. However, it does impact on some day during the week. In other words, if they take six hours on a Saturday, it will reduce the Monday or Tuesday during the week, for example. That sometimes can cause issues because families may not be there and then have to be at home. It is not straightforward. Though we offer it, it is not always straightforward. It is not always taken up, but it is there.

We also have a community support model very much in its infancy whereby people have the option to do after-hours supports, but that has to be funded through the HSE. It is not necessarily funded through day services, but it is available to a small number of people at the moment. Hopefully, that will grow.

Regarding ageing adults, I reiterate that since Covid we have a number of people, including a small group of ageing adults, who are choosing not to return our traditional day service for a variety of reasons, whether they decide it is no longer for them, they do not want get up in the morning or they do not want to be in the noisy, busy environment that day services sometimes are, and they just want their own calm, they want to get up when they want and they want to do what they want when they get up. From that point of view, we have to support them in their own homes. If we do not do that, we are not giving a rights-based service, but by doing it, we are creating a staffing deficit for ourselves. The person who might come to the centre might be in a small group of one to four people. Whereas now they are in their own house, if it is residential property, and the staff going out to them cannot be in the service. Therefore, there is a staffing deficit in the service. While the HSE has acknowledged and is well aware of the issue, there is no funding mechanism to get support for it at the moment, so that is an issue.

On the complaints issue the Deputy mentioned, all I know is that I get plenty of complaints from service users if a bus breaks down or something like that, and they do. I get complaints very quickly. We have an advocacy group that was set up in the past year. It meets and we get the complaints in. It seems to be effective. The complaints get to me, anyway, and I try to react to them as best I can.