Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister's comments. I hope that we have a full debate on them, perhaps next week or when we come back.

There is a commitment in the programme for Government to introduce a statutory home care package as quickly as possible. What progress has been made on that? I have spoken to a number of people, either in nursing homes or who have family members in nursing homes. Many of them would love to live at home if they could but, in fact, in the past, notwithstanding the increase in hours which the Minister spoke about, the facilities have not been there for them. As we move into winter, there will be an increasing demand for home care hours. Is the Minister satisfied that across all the CHO areas there will be adequate home care, both in terms of the hours available and the qualified persons to provide that to those people?