Mr. Tony O'Brien:

I am the director general of the HSE. The Secretary General of the Department is Mr. Jim Breslin.

The fair deal scheme was a significant concern in the early part of this year for one simple reason - the level of demand exceeded the level of supply of cash. Consequently, a waiting list developed, generally made up of people in hospital waiting to get out or people in the community seeking fair deal and ending up in hospital as their ability to be cared for at home diminished. The Government recently agreed traditional expenditure of the order of €44 million as part of an overall €74 million package to bring waiting times on fair deal down to four weeks, post-financial approval, which is back to where it was when the scheme originally began. That will help to bring equilibrium back into our system. It is taking us approximately 18 weeks to see the excess demand that had built up move from waiting time to actual beds.

That enables us to release transitional care bed stock, which usually turns over multiple times, from temporary long-term usage to enable the acute hospital system to work more effectively. With this recent allocation, our concerns about the fair deal scheme in terms of its current operation have been addressed. That is particularly important to those waiting for fair deal placements, many of whom felt they were under pressure to privately fund their nursing home care. That was a significant challenge and it led to a degree of inequality for society generally. Longer-term issues arise for the fair deal scheme. Thankfully, the population aged over 65 years is growing by 22,000 per year. This country is now successfully ageing to a greater extent than heretofore. That in turn will present a challenge for the Exchequer in terms of what it does with the fair deal scheme in the future but for now, the scheme will be stabilised by this change in the financial regime, which is welcome.