Mr. John Hennessy:

We will try our best to address some of those issues, starting with the Vice Chairman's question. I will call on my colleagues as needed to support me in that regard.

The first point, which a number of Deputies raised, is the importance of the home-help service. Everybody would acknowledge that the service is critical and that it is important that it be extended. There is extra funding in place in 2016, as he is probably aware, and further plans for expansion in the home help service in 2017, and additionally under the current winter plan. The Vice Chairman will see extra hours of home help being rolled out across the country. Mr. Hayes might comment on that briefly as well. It is worth noting that it is a continuous challenge to keep up with the extra demand, changing work patterns and ageing population that drive that extra demand for home help service, but everybody acknowledges the critical importance of the service.

With regard to rural clinics and health centres, it is worth pointing out that we have had an expansion of those in the past decade, with 94 new primary care centres opened, many of them in rural areas. The Vice Chairman might be familiar with the one in his area, in Mizen, which is a good example of where primary care is heading in the future. We have 24 new primary care centres under construction, which will become operational in 2017, and a further 40 in the earlier planning phases. That will help address the issue raised about the importance of services in social centres in rural Ireland, which I readily acknowledge.

The issue of Bantry hospital, and smaller hospitals generally, is a major one that will probably be dealt with by other committees of the House. There is an element of change happening with regard to the role of hospitals. The primary care side of the health service would like to be a significant part of that in strengthening the primary care service, and the ambulance and rural transport services that will be part and parcel of enabling that significant change.

Deputy Ó Cuív's question on means testing for medical cards surprised me in that we have had significant reform of the medical card scheme in the past two years. Many Deputies will be familiar with that and the PCRS reform programme. That has taken into account the opportunities to minimise any unnecessary means testing and any potential for duplication.

I would be happy to look at the example the Deputy gave regarding the farmers' allowance but if there is an opportunity to tighten that up and avoid duplication, we would be very happy to consider that. I might ask Mr. Hayes to deal with transport for dialysis patients, which I believe Deputy Ó Cuív raised also.