This paper provides an overview of Mooney's contributions to the use of community values in priority setting and resource allocation in health care. It focuses on his 'communitarian claims' perspective and highlights how moral arguments for community involvement can be translated into specific processes needed to implement this approach in practice. Different examples of where Mooney sought to define and measure the constituents of claims and their relative importance in relation to equity in resource allocation are discussed. The paper also highlights challenges around the weighing up of claims and the elicitation of community preferences, many of which were acknowledged and debated by Mooney himself.