Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State. In fairness, he has dealt with the issues I have raised but there are one or two fundamental issues that we need to identify, such as the demographic profile of parents who are caring for children. It might not be a bad idea to seriously consider asking an educational institution, such as a university, to conduct research in this area and collate all of the figures because that has not been done. We still do not know the total number of people who require respite care, their age profile and the age profile of the parents concerned. That is fundamental information that we need to have in place.

All of the information is in different organisations, but there is no national database. One of our educational institutions could take on such work as a research project. The ESRI could take on such work as a project. Long-term planning is of fundamental importance to this area.