Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I do not have a breakdown of the detail. However, the general backdrop is an international shortage of nurses. The reason Irish nurses are in Canada and the Middle East and the reason Filipino nurses are in Ireland is because there is an international shortage. There is no surplus of nurses in the world. We are all begging from each other. Moreover, for a period during the recession we were not creating posts. We lost many people during that period. It will be difficult to get them back because many of them have settled elsewhere. Anyway, we are doing well with the graduating classes. I believe we need to make a particular effort to keep them in Ireland and give them career and educational opportunities to encourage them to stay.

Certain nurses like particular types work. Older care is a particular type of work. It is very different to theatre or ICU nursing. The NMBI has tried to speed up the whole process around registering nurses from overseas.

Another point we touched on was the need to provide more community houses. The policy is not to put people in institutions or homes anymore and to de-congregate. The idea is to have many more people with disabilities and special needs in houses in normal housing estates with everyone else, perhaps with two or three people in each house. We know this happens and there are many examples in our constituencies.

The demands and the needs are vast. A sizeable number of people are still in institutional settings, for example, in Áras Attracta and other settings. We are keen to get them out into houses in the community. Many people are at home too. There may be adults in their 40s and 50s with parents in their 60s and 70s - Deputy Mitchell O'Connor referred to such cases. These parents are concerned about what will happen. We should be providing more of these houses than at present, frankly. The money simply was not available during the recession years. I know that in Dublin West the Daughters of Charity opened a new house almost every year up until 2008 and then did not open any for six or seven years because of the recession. The result is that we have pent-up demand that needs to be relieved. The Minister of State, Deputy Lynch, is in discussions with the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Kelly, because this is partially a housing matter and partially a health matter. They need to agree something. I hope we will have good news on that front sooner rather than later.