Mr. Michael Fitzgerald:

Whether care is provided by the voluntary sector, the HSE or the private providers, we are all trying to ensure that the same standard of care is provided to the very best capability of the people who can provide it, and to maintain people at home. On a positive note, we are quite successful in doing that. We are talking about providing this type of service to individuals in their homes, sometimes twice or three times a day, at a very high level of personal care in many cases. At any given time we are supporting 50,500 people. That is a fair representation of it.

The second piece is important. Over recent years, as we have assessed of the number of people who, due to demographics, may require additional places in long-stay care, we have not seen that reflected in the number that end up going into long-stay care. One of the factors supporting that has been the increase in the funding provided for home support in recent years, particularly during those key months in winter when we target people who are coming out of hospital after an acute spell and require home support. They are two important things for all of us to bear in mind as we consider-----