Micheál Martin (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)

-----and that will commit to the development of adult safeguarding legislation for the sector. We have included the health (adult safeguarding) Bill in our current legislative programme to facilitate this. On a more broader sense, we are looking at a combination. I am trying to be realistic here and respond meaningfully to what the Deputy has articulated. I do not disagree with a lot of what she said. However, there will be a necessity for increased public sector provision, for continuing private sector provision and increasingly more home care provision, a significant amount of which will be private. Regulation of both public and private will always be key here but I believe there should be a rebalancing with more public service provision, particularly in the context of more acute situations around dementia and so forth. We might get an opportunity to discuss this in greater detail later.

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