Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Cowen for raising this important issue. The nursing homes support scheme, a fair deal, is a system of financial support for individuals who require long-term nursing home care. Anyone who is ordinarily resident in the State and who may need nursing home care, regardless of age, can apply for the scheme.

The total budget for long-term residential care in 2014 is €939 million. It should be pointed out that a number of people covered by funding arrangements which preceded the scheme are also funded from this provision. The HSE releases funding weekly to balance activity across the full course of each year. The HSE operates a national placement list to match the funding available at any given time to demand. All applicants who are approved for funding are put on the placement list in order of their approval date. Funding issues to applicants in a strict order to ensure equity nationally. The current waiting time on the placement list is 15 weeks, with 2,114 people on the list awaiting release of funding.

In the first seven months of 2014, a total of 3,553 new clients were funded under the scheme. The length of time an applicant remains on the placement list depends on the number of approved applicants awaiting funding for the scheme at any given time and the number of applicants receiving payment under the scheme. This means the duration of time on the placement list can fluctuate.

While I would prefer if we had no need for waiting lists of this kind, significant funding pressures exist in the health service generally, and the nursing homes support scheme must operate within the funding available to it and manage that in the most effective way possible. I must emphasise that while residential care is an important part of the supports in place for older people, Government policy is to enable as many older people as possible to remain in their homes and communities for as long as possible. Towards that end, funding for community services has been augmented by transferring €23 million from the provision for residential care to enhance new and more intensive home supports for those with higher or more complex needs, as Deputy Cowen acknowledged.

The review of the nursing homes support scheme, which is under way, will consider the sustainability of the scheme itself, and will also consider the way in which we balance residential and community supports. The needs of older people are, and will remain, a very high priority for the Government. The resources that are available will continue to be applied to provide the best possible mix of supports and services in a way that most effectively matches the needs and preferences of older people themselves, with a particular focus on enabling people to live as independently as possible for as long as possible.

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