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

I am talking about the one in County Louth. The Minister for Health has agreed, at my request, to meet the families. I welcome that. Mr. Ian Carter, the chief executive officer of the RCSI, for whom, I think, Ms Doherty works, will also be meeting the families. My key point is that those who have suffered most are the most frustrated by the current process. These people have lost family members and they keep coming up against bureaucracy, which is extremely unhelpful. That is why I welcome the recommendation. The timeline should be immediate and I will ask the Department of Health to give me more information as to what it has done on that.

I will make a point on the vision for long-term care. Sadly, most patients in nursing homes suffer from dementia. I have seen figures to the effect that between 70% and 80% of people in nursing homes have that diagnosis. We need fantastic home care provision, but that is not there at the moment. It needs to be far more integrated and less costly in terms of service provision than is the case at present. Do the witnesses have a view on that? Do they have a vision for the future of people with dementia living at home? Is there a model that we should be following? The one good thing that can come out of all this tragedy is that there is a huge opportunity to change forever the way older people are looked after in their declining years.