Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State and her staff for attending today. It is long overdue. Commencement of the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act 2015 has been further delayed. Can the Minister of State discuss the impact of this delay on mental health and the home care strategies? Many people, especially older people, are very fearful of Covid-19. It is isolating them. What additional efforts are being made to tackle this problem? I was also curious about how home care is unregulated in Ireland. Is there a plan to address that across the board, to bring that in line and to deal with the private and public aspects of this? Dual diagnosis is a major problem. We have no specific group dealing with dual diagnosis.

There are many issues, which I have encountered many times. People have gone to hospitals and were turned away because they had mental health issues but they had also been taking drugs or alcohol. Will the Minister of State explain what plans are in place to deal with that? Under Housing for All, the new housing plan, there is a review of the adaptation grants for older people and people with disabilities. Those limits have to be changed and the income thresholds must be addressed. Will the Minister of State tell us when the review is going to take place? Inflation and other issues have had a massive impact. Regarding community healthcare organisation, CHO, 9, it has been brought to my attention that there have been no peer support workers there. The Minister of State does not have to respond, but I would be pleased if she would comment. It would be unacceptable if no peer support workers were employed in the whole of CHO 9.