Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thought I had explained in the course of my response how the increase in the waiting time had occurred. The argument is being constantly made that the Government should not have moved the €23 million from the fair deal budget to the enhancement of home care packages. Not everyone wants to go into long-term care. The list has increased. As the Deputy rightly points out, and which we have known for some time, the waiting time now stands at 15 weeks. This is unacceptable. We are currently addressing how to bring waiting times down to a more acceptable level. We are very conscious that a number of years ago, because there was no control in relation to not only who entered the scheme, but how money was dispersed, that the scheme ran out of money very early on in the year. We are determined to ensure this does not happen again. We are equally determined that into the future the scheme is managed in a way that will ensure that those who need long-term residential care will get it and that the resources to ensure its availability are in place.

See this speech in context