Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House and thank her for dealing with this matter. I welcome the decision by the Minister and the Minister of State in dealing with the emergency that has arisen in recent weeks with regard to the overcrowding in accident and emergency departments, with the large numbers increasing. As I said to someone recently, if we take the figures for last year we see that, on average, 20,000 people attend accident and emergency departments every week. If there is a 20% increase, that is an extra 4,000 people and, therefore, a huge change can occur at very short notice.

An emergency task force was set up to deal with this problem. Nursing Homes Ireland, which represents the private nursing homes, accommodates over 22,000 people in private nursing homes. I understand that in setting up the emergency task force to deal with the accident and emergency problem in the sense of trying to get people out of hospital and make beds available for people who need to be admitted, there was no representative from the private nursing homes. The private nursing homes are a key ingredient in dealing with this issue as well as the doctors, nurses, hospital administration staff and all the back-up support needed, whether it is home care packages for people being discharged from hospital or whatever. My understanding is that the nursing homes are not represented on the emergency task force and it would be appropriate that they would have a representative to ensure that all the issues can be dealt with, that a service that is made available continues to improve, and that we have a response as soon as possible.