Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)

There are two criteria a person must meet, first, income and, second, medical eligibility.

In some cases it is easy to determine income eligibility but it beggars belief that some of the cases are turned down on medical eligibility and adds to the workload of the Department. The two cases I referred to came in last week. I did not pick them out because they are optimal cases.

There is a review of the fair deal scheme under way at the moment and the Minister for Health referred to inappropriate referrals to nursing homes. We cannot talk about the fair deal scheme if support is not in place. A person may require carer's allowance next Monday because someone has a stroke or an illness, which is not something someone can plan for. In my experience, 28 weeks is short and it is substantially longer than that in a large number of cases. I do not believe the average is 28 weeks but, with two systems, it is not possible to calculate it. It is welcome that people will work on the backlog but this must be regarded as a crisis.

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