Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their presentations and the huge amount of work which they have done on this. Their studies have been very comprehensive. I have concern based on looking at how we legislate here. I mentioned it earlier but in 2012 I produced a Private Members' Bill in 2012 on professional indemnity insurance for medical practitioners, Senator James Reilly had brought in a Private Members Bill when he was a Deputy in 2009, and it is only this morning that a regulation finally went through to make it compulsory for all medical practitioners to have professional indemnity insurance. That is a seven or eight year time period from when the legislation is discussed to it being put through. The fair deal scheme was similar. Problems arose in 2004 on nursing homes and it was 2009 before the fair deal scheme was set up. I published a Private Members' Bill on home care regulation on foot of the Law Reform Commission report which was also a comprehensive report.

We are discussing new regulation and new legislation and we are talking about the initial stages. How advanced is the Department on new regulation and legislation? If we start the process of bringing forward draft proposals, whether by regulation or legislation, what timescale are we be talking about? If it is legislation, when are we likely to see the heads of a Bill on this? The Law Reform Commission has done considerable work on this area and I am interested in what kind of legislation it has proposed. I understand that the companies which provide home care have a code and this works reasonably well but there is no legislation governing who can provide home care. What timescale are we talking about? To be fair to the two witnesses here and the Departmental officials, much work has been done but we question is now about taking decisive action in view of there being huge growth in the numbers of people over 65 years between now and 2030. My concern is that it is currently 637,000 and will be over a million by 2030.