Last Monday, the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Rabbitte, visited the MooreHaven Centre in Tipperary town with Councillor Roger Kennedy and me. The centre provides day and residential services to 111 service users with mild to moderate intellectual disabilities. Since 2018, it has been in discussions with the HSE to enable it to provide urgent respite and residential care services. The centre is now in a position to provide residential care infrastructure but it needs the HSE to grant funding of €506,000 per annum to enable it to provide a 24-7 respite service. As the Tánaiste is aware, it is great for the development of service users to get a break from home. Access to respite care and facilities are also of huge benefit to ageing parents. MooreHaven urgently needs to be able to provide this respite service. I ask the Tanaiste to press the HSE to put the funding in place.

I thank the Deputy for raising this important matter. I am afraid that I do not have any information on it to hand. I will certainly let the Minister for Health, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, or the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, whichever one is appropriate, know that the issued was raise and ask her to contact the Deputy directly.