Mr. Michael Harty:

I thank the members for their interesting questions. I wish to address the two points made by Deputy Ó Caoláin concerning carers. One of the most difficult jobs is the job of the carer. It takes a special kind of person to take it on. One of the advantages of the recession is that there are currently more carers available than were available at the height of the Celtic tiger. As the economy improves, that will not be the case. We must also take into account the fact that demand and resources will increase all the time. One of the major issues is the question of sourcing quality carers. We must move towards a situation where caring is looked on as a career rather than as job. In the short term, we find ourselves competing with the social welfare system for people who want to take on work. Initially, we cannot offer them enough hours and they are not willing to forgo social welfare payments. That must be examined.

With regard to the extension of the IT47 definition, it does not make any sense to have barriers in front of people in respect of their care choice. Not extending the definition and not allowing tax relief is pushing people towards residential care or other care that they do not necessarily want.

I will reply to Deputy Regina Doherty and Senator van Turnhout together. I agree with Mr. Tadhg Daly that it is not a battle between our two sectors. There is a place for residential care and a place for home care. We must be careful about creating an artificial demand through the placing of budgets in silos, so to speak. A little over a year ago, the Minister gave figures of 29% of people in residential care being deemed low dependency and 16% medium dependency. Clinically, 30% of people could be looked after at home and their preference is for this.

One of my members told me about an interesting case recently. It concerned a 93 year old woman who lived independently in the Wexford area. She had to go into hospital for a procedure and the hospital told her that she would need care when she left. They told her she had to apply for the fair deal scheme but she replied that she wanted to live at home and intended to apply for a home care package. She applied for both schemes on the insistence of the hospital and was refused a home care package but received the fair deal scheme. The woman is now living in a residential care home where she does not want to be and the cost to the State is €1,000 per week when it could have been €200 or €300.

With regard to Deputy Fitzpatrick's point on regulation and staff, one of our major bugbears is that the home care sector is not regulated. From our point of view, we should probably have regulated that sector before the nursing home sector. The mere fact that the nursing home sector has people around means there is some control in place. Some 95% of home care service is delivered one to one with vulnerable adults.