Ms Laura Magahy:

I would like to reassure the Chair on the local authority involvement part. He is absolutely right in that it is a key part of every part of Sláintecare. We have funded the age-friendly piece, in particular, through the local authorities. Its position is sponsored by Meath County Council. We have put in place 11 - Mr. Straton can correct me - age-friendly housing co-ordinators. Their job is to go out to see if the existing houses fit for purpose, for older people in particular and to put in place the infrastructure needed, in advance of somebody falling, ending up in hospital and waiting to come home and if he or she cannot come home, having to go into a nursing home.

This is exactly why we have put this in place. It will have a proper impact on ordinary people's lives. We had a report this morning from the man who is managing the programme to say it had already received 600 references from within the local authorities, for people who want the services. The services can be retrofit from the perspective of energy or the suitability of the house, or a link to the integrated care programme for older people to give people clinical services, if they are needed.

The local authorities are a key part of what we are doing and the work Mr. Straton, my colleague, is about in the Healthy Ireland team. We have Healthy Ireland co-ordinators in every local authority and the healthy communities will be housed by representatives through the local authorities structure, because we can see health is only a tiny part of the impact of how well somebody is. It is the wider determinants, such as housing, education and all of that stuff we talked about, which has an even bigger impact on how well somebody can live in their own community, so we are linked-in with the local authority structure. I would like to assure the Chair on that.