Máire Hoctor (Tipperary North, Fianna Fail)

I propose to take Questions Nos. 72 and 138 together.

The Health Information and Quality Authority submitted its draft national quality standards for residential care settings for older people to the Minister for Health and Children on 29 February 2008. The draft standards have been published and copies are available on the authority's website. In line with best practice, the draft standards, and the regulations required to underpin them, are currently the subject of a regulatory impact assessment. As part of this assessment, a consultation session with key stakeholders was hosted by the Minister and me on 23 October. Further details are available on the Department's website.

I expect the assessment to be finalised by the end of the year and the approved standards and regulations to be in place by the end of the first quarter of 2009. At that stage, and once the relevant part of the Health Act 2007 has been commenced, all residential centres for older people, including public and private nursing homes, will be subject to inspection and registration by HIQA and its chief inspector of social services. The standards involved will be compulsory. In the meantime, discussions are taking place between my Department, HIQA and the HSE about the administrative and other arrangements required to move from the existing system to the new system of inspection.

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