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

I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. Like her, I thins there will always be a role to play for nursing homes. We want more home care and more people being able to stay in their homes for longer and that is the plan and the direction of travel. This is why so much additional funding has been provided for home care in recent years with a 40% increase in the past couple of years and a further increase next year. There will always be people who need a nursing home and who need residential care and this needs to be provided for. Like the Deputy, I have no ideological bias as to whether that is provided by the public or private sector, so long as standards are high and that people are cared for properly.

On the fair deal review, I had thought that was published ages ago. I may be wrong. If it was not, I will check into that.

The fees paid by the State to the nursing homes under the nursing homes support scheme are negotiated between the NTPF and nursing homes individually and that is done on a confidential basis because it is commercially sensitive. The NTPF tries to make sure that reasonable costs are covered and that a reasonable profit is possible for those nursing home providers.

It is difficult for private nursing homes to compete with the State and with the HSE for staff. This is because in the State sector the pay is generally that little bit better and there is the possibility of a public sector pension, which is very valuable, and the leave arrangements can also be beneficial. We need to bear in mind that the nursing home sector is very profitable. I know that this year may have been an exception but, in the round, the nursing home sector is profitable. It may be the case that there are a lot of nursing homes around the country that have the capacity to offer better terms and conditions for their staff by reducing their profits. We need to be frank about this too.

There is a difference between public and private nursing homes. They are not directly comparable. It is generally the case that those public nursing homes under the HSE tend to care for people with higher care needs. We often see figures comparing one sector with the other and saying that the cost of providing care in a HSE nursing home is higher than that in a private nursing home. This is often because the public nursing homes tend to take people with higher care needs, so it is not always directly comparable in the way some people try to compare it.

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