Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

With regard to representatives from Northern Ireland having access to committees in Leinster House, the Taoiseach has sought to get consensus among all parties. He has been acting in this capacity as leader of the largest party. It has not yet been possible to reach agreement on the matter.

Over the past 12 months, as the Deputy is aware, there has been a report by Mercer on the issue of care for the elderly, especially relating to long-term funding of continuing care. There has also been the O'Shea report on nursing home subventions. These were published some time ago. There have also been ESRI reports and, over recent months, an interdepartmental committee has examined the issues and produced proposals for the Government. We will make decisions in this area. It is not a matter for others to do so. There was a commitment in Sustaining Progress to examine the issues and the greater the buy-in from the wider society the better.

I would welcome a debate in this House. There is no question of not wanting one. The discussion the Government had yesterday was of a preliminary nature. As the Deputy has acknowledged, those in the population who are over 65 now represent an age-dependency percentage of 18%, and this will double over the next 20 years so there are major issues with which we must deal. We would welcome the views of everybody in the House on the matter. Perhaps we can find a forum in due course, such as the Joint Committee on Health and Children, where we could debate some of these issues.

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