Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The issue raised by the Deputy has been brought to our attention on numerous occasions by people who are frustrated because they feel they could care for their family members at home, thereby sparing the State the cost of a nursing home bed or a fair deal bed. They want to know why they cannot get an equivalent amount of financial support in cash. Such financial supports are available in other countries. We cannot have both schemes running together. The fair deal exclusively covers the cost of nursing home support. As the Deputy will be aware, it is set out in legislation and so on. It does not address the question of keeping people well in the community. We cannot risk tearing down the existing scheme or starting to interfere with it. We are going to create a separate independent scheme that will mirror the fair deal scheme. The exclusive intention of this scheme will be to support people to live well in their own homes. To answer the Deputy's question, at present there is no facility for the fair deal to kick in when a person is assessed as being in need of nursing home care - it can only kick in when the person avails of nursing home care.