asked the Minister for Health if he has any proposals which will help to involve psychiatric nurses to a greater extent with the community.

I intend to place far greater emphasis on the community-based side of our psychiatric services in the future. To date, we have concentrated to an excessive degree on institutional treatment methods. A new balance between hospital and community-based treatment must be found.

As we increase the emphasis in the psychiatric services towards community-based treatment, a similar change of emphasis in the role of the psychiatric nurse will take place, subject, of course, to full consultation with the staffs concerned, including the nurses themselves.

Is it not a fact that this new approach has been in operation for some years now?

That is so, and there are a certain number of nurses working in the community all over the country, but it still needs to be expanded.

I accept that but it is not new.

I did not suggest that it was new.