Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

Thank you. I apologise for the low attendance which is due to an earlier session of the meeting running on for longer than expected and the fact the Dáil is now in session. There is also a health conference on today at which two of the committee's members are speaking this morning. I would like, however, to reassure the witnesses that their submissions and contributions this morning will be taken into consideration by the committee's research team who are working on the drafting of its report.

I would like to take up a couple of points with both witnesses. There is no doubt that at a constituency level one of the biggest issues is the lack of home care and home help services. For the first time in my experience there are long waiting lists for home care services generally. It is now common practice for people in their 80s and 90s to be put on waiting lists. I have never seen the situation as bad. I accept the suggestion, in principle, that there should be a statutory entitlement to home care services, as in the case of nursing home care. However, an aspect of that approach that concerns me and which has been alluded to by Dr. Browne is that when it comes to nursing home care, we are charging people for care in respect of which in any other setting, including acute hospital care, there is no charge. I would welcome the witnesses' view on the principle of a person in his or her advanced years who needs additional care being charged for that care, albeit after their passing. My concern is that if we move to a system of statutory entitlement to home care, there will be a proposal to charge people for that as well. I would also welcome the witnesses' views on the funding model that should be pursued in both respects.

Moving on to day care services, I have seen a few examples of pretty good day care centres. They are certainly very popular and are an important element of community care. The witnesses might comment on day care services, which is an issue I do not think either of them have commented on thus far. On the need to combine housing and health care services, I agree with the point made earlier about our not being very good at doing that. There are very strict demarcation lines between the HSE and local authorities and we need to join up thinking in this regard. I believe there is a need for a particular type of vehicle to do that. Other than simply saying both agencies need to work more closely together, we need to provide a vehicle through which there would be structured co-operation between the two authorities to achieve what is desired. There are a small number of examples of good quality supported housing for older people with ancillary services and so on, but they are the exception rather than the rule. Do the witnesses' have any ideas in terms of how this combining of services might be approached in structural terms?