Ms Geraldine Fitzpatrick:

In the Who Cares? report there were no formal recommendations. The Ombudsman just came to conclusions at the end of that report, from my recollection. I do not have it in front of me. She deliberately chose not to make recommendations in view of that issue around what she saw as the potential cost to the State should she do so. "Conclusions and reflections" is the headline she used. I worked for many years in the Office of the Ombudsman so my understanding still is that her recommendations are not binding, and that is one of the issues in the legislation. In the Secretary General's opening statement we referred to how this will not happen again. We have put in place the mechanism through the nursing home support scheme for access on an equal basis to long-stay care, whether private, public or voluntary. Everybody accesses it through that legislation and generally everybody is very happy that the legislation works very well.