Ms Phil Ní Sheaghdha:

We agree wholeheartedly and believe that the private for-profit model is the incorrect one for our older population. We have made submissions to this committee and to the Joint Committee on Health in the previous Dáil on this matter. We raised the 200 beds that were earmarked to be taken out of the public sector last December in the service plan right across the political spectrum, with the HSE and with the Department of Health. The model in this country is to privatise the care of the older person, and that is the wrong model. The State has to provide care for our older population and base the number of nurses, healthcare assistants and other staff on the dependency level of the patient, not the for-profit and the cost of care model, because that model is incorrect.