Brian Ó Domhnaill (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Ba mhaith liomsa fosta glacadh leis an deis chun comhghairdeachas a dhéanamh leis an Seanadóir John Gilroy as an leabhar atá curtha le chéile aige. I congratulate the Senator on his excellent research and the book he has commissioned. I wish him well tonight and hope the book sells very well. When he is enjoying his royalties, I hope he will not forget the rest of us.

I welcome the report launched this morning by the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine, under the stewardship of Deputy Andrew Doyle, on the issue of commonage lands. I hope the Leader will facilitate a debate on this excellent report in the autumn. It would be useful to examine the manner in which commonage lands are managed and the additional payments which might be made available to the farmers throughout the country who work those lands.

I appreciate that our time is restricted in the coming days, but I support Senator Denis O'Donovan's call for a debate on public nursing homes. It is an issue I have raised before and one that is bringing serious problems down the tracks. The bottom line is that community facilities cannot meet the demand that exists. At this time, some 2.4% of people over 65 years of age are in nursing homes, but that is set to increase to 4% or thereabouts in the next ten to 15 years. We simply do not have the facilities to meet the need. There must be a national structure and plan in place to upgrade existing nursing homes, deal with the moratorium on recruitment and look at constructing new community and public nursing homes. Time might not allow for a debate on this issue before the recess, but I appeal to the Leader to accommodate a discussion when the Seanad returns in the autumn.