Frances Fitzgerald (Fine Gael)

That will be helpful. I ask the Minister of State to bear in mind the difficulties that will arise if those guidelines are not rigorous and detailed in regard to when this assessment should be done, again bearing in mind the high dependency people we are in general talking about.

The Minister of State used the statistic of 79%. Almost 80% is not a bad statistic with regard to the completion of assessments in this roll-out in regard to disability. In a way, that is nearly an argument for accepting this amendment, given that the Department was almost in a position to move to an 80% review. While we of course all want 100%, in terms of the roll-out of any new assessment of needs, close to 80% is certainly moving in the right direction. We have achieved lower target figures in other areas previously.

I ask the Minister of State to seriously consider including in the published guidelines as much detail as possible in regard to the expectation concerning when the care assessment should be done. It could be the case that a person is left in a situation where there are not enough resources to carry out the assessment, although that person is still in a totally unsuitable placement and nobody knows when the necessary resources will be available.

I will withdraw the amendment. Perhaps the Minister of State will come back on Report Stage to give us more detail on the guidelines it is intended to publish and to inform the House in more detail of how she sees those guidelines developing, which would be helpful.