I'd like to start off by also saying 'thank you' to Sarah Rochira for her six years of work as the Older People's Commissioner for Wales. Of course, her period in office has covered some really big changes, such as the advent of the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014, so she has been here at a very important time. I think we should say how proud we are that Wales was the first country in the UK to establish the role of the older person's commissioner and, in fact, Sarah is only the second person to have held that post.

One of the issues that I think she has done really well in is raising the issue of treating older people with dignity. Of course, her predecessor, Ruth Marks, did the 'Dignified Care?' review, and Sarah followed that with a 'Dignified Care: Two Years On' progress report. I think that her work around this issue has been very important because,as other speakers have said today, older people need to be treated with dignity, and they're not always treated with dignity. We have seen examples of the way that older people may have bee treated in the care system or in hospital—a minority, but I think this is what we've got to be aware of.

Of course, I think the issue of antipsychotic drugs has already been mentioned here today, and, in our inquiry on the health committee, we did see that antipsychotic drugs are maybe being used inappropriately, and that, of course, is not treating older people with dignity. So, I think there is a long way to go, but I think that Sarah has made a big input, really, in that particular area, and she speaks very fluently about how she goes all around Wales and she listens to everybody. She wanted to have all these conversations, and she did, and I think she did bring back what older people themselves wanted, and, of course, being treated with dignity is one of the big issues. 

The other issue, of course, is people living with dementia and their families. Again, I think her voice has been very strong in highlighting the issues of living with dementia. I know that many of us went to the Alzheimer's Society session at lunchtime today about making the Assembly dementia friendly, and I think Sarah has helped to contribute to raising the awareness of that. I understand that half of all Assembly Members have now signed up to become dementia friends, and I hope that, in fact, everybody will sign up eventually. I think Sarah has played a really valuable role in that. 

I was very pleased yesterday to hear that Dementia Friendly Cardiff was launched, and that Cardiff, the city, has signed up to become a dementia-friendly place, with organisations such as Cardiff Bus and Cardiff City Football Club signing up to become dementia friendly. I know, in Chapter Arts Centre, there are going to be dementia-friendly screenings that are going to be open to people with dementia, their carers, families, friends and neighbours. I think that's great progress in that field as well. I also welcome the Ageing Well in Wales agenda that the Minister mentioned, with the creation of age-friendly communities as well as dementia-supporting communities.   

And, of course, Sarah has highlighted the issue of loneliness and isolation, and I think that when we looked in the committee at the issue of loneliness, that came over as one of the huge issues that we have to tackle in Wales and that the Welsh Government and this Assembly must tackle. I think Sarah made a huge contribution to that. 

My constituency of Cardiff North has more than double the number of over-50s living there than in any other part of city. There are 35,000 people over 50 in Cardiff North, and although I don't class 50 as being old—definitely not—there are 35,000 people and, as I say, the concentration of older people is in the north of the city, in my constituency. I think it's quite important to note the fact that loneliness can occur when you're living in a city, in a crowded area and not just in rural communities.

The big issue that I want to draw attention to for older people living anywhere is the lack of toilet facilities, because I really feel that we've raised that and discussed this at great length in this Assembly, particularly during the last Assembly, and I wonder, really, how much progress has been made on that. I know that this is something that Sarah Rochira has mentioned several times in her contributions.

So, I will just end by saying that I think that it's absolutely great that we've got a commissioner, and I'd like to thank Sarah again for all that she's done.