I raise the issue of respite care, in respect of which there is a commitment in the programme for Government. It was announced with huge fanfare that an additional €10 million was being provided for respite care. There is a chronic crisis in regard to access to respite, particularly for families of persons with intellectual disabilities. Service providers are telling families that there is no respite available for 2019, and have been doing so for the past couple of months, but they have been offered a shared care service. People at a high level in the services are saying that funding for respite care is not being made available by the HSE to the regions and that the Government is at sea in terms of the crisis in this area. Attempts to access home help hours for some families have been shut down. Is the Tánaiste aware of the massive crisis around respite care services for the remainder of 2019 and that there is an even greater crisis coming down the track in this regard?

I am responding on behalf of my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Finian McGrath. The Government is aware of the pressures on the disability sector in particular. A budget of €1.9 billion has been spent so far this year on the provision of services for people with disabilities. We all acknowledge that is not enough but there is not an endless pot of money available to us. As acknowledged by Deputy Michael Moynihan, there has been an additional €10 million investment this year in new respite facilities, not all of which have not come on stream. Most of them are at an advanced stage. This area continues to be a challenge and we will continue to try to meet that challenge as best we can. There is no silver bullet to the issue of demand.