Mr. Pat Healy:

Home care was the issue I wanted to address so I will deal with it and get my colleague, Mr. Michael Fitzgerald, to deal with the other issue. A lot of work has been done in collaboration with the Garda and we now have an agreed notification process between the HSE and the Garda with regard to vulnerable adults. It is an important step and it will govern the referrals and so on.

I have a number of points to make on the issue of investigation. Learning from all of the previous issues that have arisen, I have a number of points to make. Regulation is an essential part of it. On the residential side we have independent regulation by HIQA, which we do not have yet in community services and home care. We are supporters of that and Mr. Fitzgerald will talk about it in more detail and some of the other aspects that have been raised by members. Regulation will be an important part of it. On the specific issue of our independence and the learning around that, we have established a national panel for people with disability similar to the child care panel. It has been formally established and a chairman has been appointed to it. The panel is still being put together. Investigations of a significant nature that are required in future will go to that panel in the same way that investigations into child care services in the past went to the national panel for children. It is important that it will be independently investigated.

In other cases we have established a framework, which is now in place, such that if we require investigating teams, we can draw them from a panel which is being tendered externally. They are two important innovations.