Mr. Niall Redmond:

Not on an individual basis. We measure in terms of bed days, with three categories of 30, 60 and 90 days. This would not be specific to people who are waiting to go home. It relates more generally to delayed discharges. Delayed discharges as a whole category probably average around the 550 mark. This is a mix of long-term residential care, rehabilitation, home care and the small number of people awaiting housing adaptation.

Deputy Casey referred to the more than 90% of people who would prefer to stay in their homes. If there were more options, these people would look at the other alternatives. The Department has a piece of work that was done under the healthy and positive ageing initiative as part of the national positive ageing strategy. This research has not been published yet and is due to be finalised in the next while. It will be published later this year. I can give the committee a snapshot as it homes in on what has been said here. The study looked at 10,500 adults aged over 55 and their attitudes to future housing options. A total of 30% of people in the study said they were positive about moving towards an adapted housing type such as housing with care style models. This builds on the points made here and shows the evidence base for this type of development. It is an interesting statistic.