Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

That will not be a problem. The Deputy raised the broader issue of home help provision. She is probably aware that last year my Department commissioned the Health Research Board to carry out an evidence-based review of all the various international approaches taken to the regulation and financing of home care services. The Minister of State, Deputy Helen McEntee, will publish the outcome shortly. We will then undertake a mapping exercise of current service provision nationally taking into account the scale and diversity of the services funded. This will be used to identify the policy options for the new statutory home care scheme. The areas we need to consider are regulation, financing, assessment and eligibility. The issue of public versus private provision is a legitimate one that needs to be considered. There is a lot of work to be done in this area. It took several years to set up the fair deal scheme which is generally recognised to be working well, apart from a few anomalies that need to be rectified. That is the next big thing we must crack. A total of 1,064 people under the age 65 years are in nursing homes. Without knowing each story behind these numbers, one of the reasons is we do not have a statutory home care scheme. I think there is consensus in the Dáil that we need to get this done. We should, therefore, move on it.