Lucinda Creighton (Dublin South East, Renua Ireland)
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370. To ask the Minister for Health his views on the decision to extend the time period for nursing homes run by the Health Service Executive to meet the regulations; if he understands this to be an inequality of standards, challenging the position of the Health Information and Quality Authority as an independent regulator; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [41294/15]

Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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The Government is committed to ensuring that long term residential services for older people meet the 'National Quality Standards for Residential Care for Older People in Ireland (2009)'. The Standards and the associated National Regulations that underpin them encompass issues relevant to the privacy, dignity and respect of residents and seek to support the provision of a physical environment that meets modern day standards and the needs of vulnerable people living in designated services.

The shortage of public capital funds in recent years due to the economic crisis has meant a number of publicly or voluntary provided services have not fully met standard 25 of the national quality standards within the previously state timeframe of 1 July 2015.

The Government's recently published Capital Plan, Building on Recovery: Infrastructure and Capital Investment 2016-2021, commits to a major multi-annual programme of capital investment in public and voluntary provided social care facilities. A total of €200 million in Exchequer funding has been made available for Services for Older People together with further potential to develop projects through Public Private Partnerships.

As a result it is now possible to set revised policy and timeframe for ensuring that all public and voluntary services which are currently non-compliant demonstrate to HIQA that they will achieve the relevant national standard by the end of the Capital Plan Period in 2021.

In the coming weeks the HSE will submit to HIQA its plans, focused at individual service level, to meet the requirements of Standard 25. These individual plans will be in line with the revised policy time-frame, and will detail proposed capital expenditure at each individual centre level. The HSE will also support relevant voluntary providers with which it has service level agreements in submitting individual plans.

This decision was absolutely necessary to ensure that older people continue to have access to the services they need at a vulnerable stage in their lives. To impose a compliance time-line that was unachievable would have led to facilities closing across the length of the country, with others reducing their bed numbers. Older people and others who need these services, and their families, would not thank us if we allowed this to happen.