Mr. Tony O'Brien:

HIQA's formal powers relate to nursing homes. If it finds breaches in nursing home facilities, it can close those facilities to new admissions until the breaches are remedied. Breaches take many forms but more commonly, both in nursing homes and facilities for those with intellectual disabilities, we are seeing infrastructure related issues arising, although not exclusively, which require investment in things like fire safety, for example. This year these issues account for a large proportion of our supplementary budget. In the area of disabilities, approximately €37 million additional costs are arising for compliance. We do not disagree with the need to make these improvements - our difficulty is funding them.

If this year were next year, we would not be able to meet the costs if they were in excess of our budget. A provision in HIQA's legislation would have to kick in which would require it to have due regard to the financial resources available to us to implement these measures.