Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I want to try to crystallise the ask as much as we can, so that we can be as helpful as we can. There are many understandable asks here, such as having full regional community-based teams equally across the country.

There are asks in terms of community care beyond the 12-week programmes that might be available. There is obviously a big ask in terms of the new project the witnesses want to lead. It is totally understandable that the State would like the NAI, as an organisation, to lead. The State relies on section 39 organisations in lots of areas. They do an amazing job, in many cases, more efficiently than the State could do it because of the kind of resourcefulness the witnesses have spoken about today in putting together a coalition of very smart, experienced people, many of whom are doing it for nothing in terms of financial reward. It would be helpful for me to understand whether the centre they want to create is very much consistent with what we need in terms of the overall strategy? Should it be prioritised as a big capital expenditure for next year? The sum is €25 million. If an extra €100 million is to be spent in this area, is a quarter of that to go to the project? Is that the best way we can spend the money? I do not know what the figure will be, but we have pushed for an increased spend, certainly on the capital side, because there is a lot of capital available. With that capital comes a significant current spend in terms of staffing, which the witnesses have outlined will save the State money, rather than cost it money in the medium term and ensure that people are in an appropriate residential setting, as opposed to a nursing home or a hospital.

What the witnesses say makes an awful lot of sense to me, but I want to try to understand what the key priority areas are in terms of current and capital expenditure that they want to see us pushing for in 2025. The HSE will be putting together its service delivery plan now that it knows how much money it will have to spend, both for the end of this year and into next year. Trying to crystallise those asks would be helpful for us because there is such a strong case for all of this to be done. It would be helpful for us to try to prioritise the asks, in particular on the capital side because there will be money available.