Fiona O'Loughlin (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their response. I agree there should be a person-centred approach in how we best support people in their choices and in what suits them. Ms O'Connell mentioned enablement. I totally agree that it is about enabling, empowering and listening to voices such as Mr. Alford's about the lived experience of having to fight the system to get to where he is. It occurs to me that we do not have enough step-down facilities, which are between the private home and the nursing home, where people can live independently but support and monitoring is available at the same time. We do not do enough of it at all in Ireland. A gentleman called Pat O'Mahony wrote an excellent book, mainly geared towards older people, but the same principle could be used. When people need to move, for example, from a big house in the countryside, because driving is perhaps becoming a problem and they need to downsize, they should be able to go to a place where supports are available. They should have their independence but also have supports around them. We need to look at being able to use fair deal funding for that because that is the only mechanism that is available for supporting people. Perhaps the committee can consider that.