Dr. Siobhán Kennelly:

Dr. Mike Ryan from the WHO gave a very good presentation on a lot of the fundamentals around ageing and the exposé that Covid-19 has been in terms of ageing at a discussion organised by the Irish Gerontological Society, IGS, last October. He stated that 40% of deaths in older people very much reflected where they lived, particularly if they lived in a congregated care setting. We really need to look at the pandemic in terms of what it means for us in regard to how we address ageing within our society and the health and social care provision around it. That is part of the fundamental policy provision in terms of Sláintecare and trying to ensure that people can live within their own homes for as long as possible. The measures that are being taken through the enhanced community care initiatives and others are fundamentally underpinning the way the discussion moves forward.

I come back to Mr. Daly's point earlier around these issues being seen across a continuum. When one asks older people where they want to live, the huge majority of them want to continue living in their own homes. We need a model of long-term care that speaks to smaller, residential, household-type models in which the evidence internationally is increasingly accruing around less exposure in terms of pandemic and risk. The Deputy is addressing a number of really important learning points within his questions and they will need to be taken on by the system.