James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Second, and if I may answer the Deputy's question on the reduction in staff numbers, an additional 884 new staff have been provided for mental health services.

We are reviewing the nursing home support scheme with a view to determining how the money might be better spent supporting people at home. I have no wish to engage in political point scoring, but we were left with a situation in which different criteria were used in various parts of the country to assess people's needs for long-term care. As a result, in one third of cases people need to be in nursing homes, that need is questionable in another third and, in the last third, they should definitely not be in homes.

We have invested heavily. I wish to put on record a note of gratitude for Atlantic Philanthropies, which supported us with a couple of million euro in the development of a new single assessment tool for older people to determine whether they need long-term care or what sort of home care packages might keep them at home for longer.

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