Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State and I often talk about how we are all getting older. We know from the Department of Health report that was just published that Ireland's population is ageing faster than anywhere else in Europe. It is important that we make sure services that provide support, such as nursing homes, are adequately funded.

I met with representatives from some nursing homes recently. One of the issues that came up is that while the HSE is recruiting, some of them feel they are losing staff to the HSE from their nursing homes. The reason they are saying this is that the benefits with the HSE outweigh what they can provide.

The other issue raised was that the majority of smaller nursing homes cannot compete with the HSE. In the fair deal scheme, private nursing homes are on an average of a little over €1,000 per week per resident but the HSE is on double that amount, over €2,000 per week. That has become a huge issue.

See this speech in context