Dr. Kathleen MacLellan:

Mr. O'Regan has outlined quite a bit there. I assure members that all of the Ministers are highly committed to working together on this issue. They are very much concerned about what they have read within the Ombudsman's report and they are very keen to see progress. Currently, three Ministers are within the one Department and there is a real opportunity for the Ministers to come together and support initiatives with regard to those people under 65 and in nursing homes.

It is correct that we need to look at alternatives and other initiatives to support people in the home. It might be useful if I mention this year's initiatives in the HSE. Last year the HSE introduced intensive in-home packages that worked very well. This was increased by more than double in 2021. These are packages to support people to continue to live in their own home. There was also an increase in personal assistance hours and funding to support 144 people to move from congregated settings to the community. There are also an additional 102 residential places provided for this year. The importance of the statutory home care scheme cannot be overemphasised. We have separate systems that operate and we are hoping that within the mapping process we can track how people have ended up in nursing homes and the funding schemes that have been utilised for those within those nursing home schemes. This will give us a stronger sense of the pathways and what other pathways we should be utilising. It will also give us an opportunity to identify the costs. This is important as we move towards the Estimates and budget into 2022.

There has been unprecedented investment this year in the statutory home care scheme and we are seeing the benefit of that with the reduction of people waiting for funding for home care hours. We have seen a 45% increase in home care hours from 2017 to 2021. When the health capacity report did its ten-year projections, it identified the need for a 120% increase in home care hours. There is a lot of work to be done here to be able to meet demand.

I am not sure if I have answered all of the members' questions but I am happy to come back to anything we have missed.