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

The situation is far from satisfactory and I will not pretend otherwise. There are roughly 700 delayed discharges in acute hospitals at the moment. Most of these are elderly patients who have been discharged by a consultant and are ready either to go home or to go to a nursing home but cannot do so. More than half the 700 delayed discharges are in Dublin city.

There will always be delayed discharges for various reasons, but if we could lower the number from 700 to 350, it would have a significant impact. It would free beds to lower the number of people on trolleys and reduce surgical waiting lists. This issue is one of the ten priorities I have outlined for my Ministry. It is under discussion at the moment in the context of putting together a budget for 2015 and a service plan thereafter. We need additional resources for social care, because it is very underdeveloped in this country relative to Northern Ireland and England, and we need them for the nursing home support scheme.

I have not had specific engagement with the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Alan Kelly, on the issue of housing adaptation but I will speak to him and ask my officials to examine Deputy Cowen's figures to see if they stack up. The Deputy will be aware from his constituency work that not everyone who seeks housing adaptation would otherwise be in a hospital or nursing home. Many live in the house in any case. To do what the Deputy suggests would require a distinction between those who can live in a house without adaptation and those who would otherwise be in a hospital or nursing home. There may be common sense in what the Deputy says so my officials will examine the figures.

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