Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank each of the Senators who contributed to the debate and acknowledge their commitment and passion. Nobody has taken advantage of this situation and all are genuinely concerned about this issue, which I always appreciate. I have a prepared script, but I will be brief in order to address the issues the Senators have raised with me directly. I will not rerun everything I already said, but I stress that these Houses dictated that the NTPF must deal with nursing homes individually and independent of the Minister of the day. If the Houses want to change that and believe the Minister should do the negotiating, we can debate it and the Minister can get involved. As of now, according to the law of the land as set by this House and the Lower House, negotiations are conducted by an independent body, namely, the NTPF. I must have due regard to that process. Regardless of whether people like it, that is the harsh reality.

We looked at some of the figures. Over 23,000 people are in nursing homes today and are funded by the fair deal scheme. The NTPF negotiates a rate for each of those 23,142 people. We are talking about 60 residential places within that figure of over 23,000. I am not saying for a second that any one of those 60 people are less worthy of everybody's full and total commitment and attention, but the NTPF by and large does a reasonably good job in this area. We are not in here every day debating nursing homes across the board. If we were, it would mean the whole thing was in chaos. I am just making that point to put this in context, not to take away from any of the 60 people impacted by this issue.

Senator Davitt asked for more detail regarding the negotiations. I cannot give that detail as I do not have it. I am not involved in those negotiations and do not have any input in them. If I had input and started asking about how much various things cost or how much was being spent on food, I would be breaking the law as agreed by this House and the Dáil. That is the kind of detail that goes on in those negotiations, which I cannot give the Senator.

Senator Devine-----