Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have a number of short questions. Unfortunately, I will have to leave for a couple of minutes so Deputy Durkan will take the Chair. I will ask my questions and will have an opportunity to read back on the answers in the Official Report.

Mr. Moran talked about the need to maintain standards and how important they are, and I do not think anyone would disagree with that. Can Mr. Moran comment on whether he believes those standards are being maintained effectively at the moment? What could be done, even in the short term, to improve things? We all talk about our ageing population, which is marvellous. We would all like to grow old in safety and comfort and know that somebody is monitoring those standards. While we appreciate the evidence from the HSE and the Department of Health about what might happen in future, perhaps Mr. Moran could indicate what could happen in the very short term to ensure those standards are maintained.

Mr. O'Shea referred to something very interesting, which Mr. Moran might talk about as well, which is what older people want. We are discussing what they might want in terms of regulation. Is there a forum other than through representative groups for older persons to feed directly into the system? If we become more corporatised and move further away from the community base, will the opportunity for older persons to feed into that process be lost?

I want to ask the representatives from the NCCN about the difficulty in sourcing home help hours between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m., which the representatives from the Department of Health referred to earlier. They said it is sometimes necessary to go to the private sector to source those hours. I have said already I have some experience of that. My experience of dealing with home helps is of them telling me they cannot get enough hours and that they are available to do the work. Will the witnesses comment on the capacity issue and the ability for a client to top up hours, which was mentioned in the opening remarks of the representatives of the NCCN? Will they elaborate on exactly what that is? It is my understanding that when a person has been allocated a certain number of hours, which are paid for by the HSE, the person or his or her family may be able to top those hours up. If the witnesses excuse me, I have to go but I will be back. I will be able to listen back to their responses.