Dr. Colm Henry:

The Deputy is absolutely right that we need to expand the number of specialist roles for nursing, and we are doing that. In particular, the Minister for Health has declared an ambition to have advanced nurse practitioners, ANPs, make up 3% of the entire nursing workforce. Part of our overall strategy in nursing is to broaden the role of nurses and make sure they are working at the top of their licence. To this end, we have added 150 advanced nurse practitioners to give a total of, I believe, 850 is at this stage. They will complete loops of care within hospital specialist services, cancer services, palliative care services and also in the community. They will be a core part of the enhanced community care scheme where we have nurses working at the top of their licence and treating older people and-----