Mr. Michael Fitzgerald:

The Department of Health is undertaking significant consultation in the area of home care legislation and regulation. That will come to a conclusion this week. It had to be extended because of the level of input from the community and voluntary groups, etc. From our perspective, home care has grown as a resource and in terms of its importance in maintaining older people and people with disabilities in their own homes. Those of us in the HSE have been calling for such regulation or licensing of providers to a standard or level and we hope the committee might move that legislation forward. We have done some internal work to strengthen our organisation and have good oversight of the home care services. We have put audit teams in place in the nine community health organisations, CHOs, this year. They are working with the service providers, and taking the temperature and receiving comments from the recipients on their experience of the service. This is important because home care is a high risk area and there will be challenges in regulating that. It will be important that those who provide it will be able to display that they have oversight and good systems in place to ensure that any risks with regard to abuse of vulnerable people will be picked up by the service.

I acknowledge what Senator Colm Burke said, that there is work to be done in a range of services because people who are getting older should put their affairs in place at an early stage. They should do it when they are healthy, have capacity, are clear about what they want to do, and understand the importance of that when they do need services, such as applying for the nursing homes support scheme and all that comes with it. Doing all that in the cold light of day when one is well and able, for want of a better phrase, is very important. I echo his comments on that area. Too often we find ourselves in a morass with people's circumstances, and people are not sure or not clear. Families are often not sure what their parents' requirements are or there is divisiveness. It would be important that, given our ageing population, older people are educated on their rights and entitlements to enable them make good decisions when they are able to do so.