Our private and voluntary nursing homes are facing significant challenges and urgent intervention is necessary to halt the alarming trend of closures we are witnessing. Last year, a staggering one in three private and voluntary nursing homes ran at a loss. Their operating costs have soared by 36%, forcing many to shut their doors. In my own back yard in Mayo, we have felt the sting of this crisis. St. Anne's Nursing Home in Charlestown is already closed, and now there are looming threats of closures in both Claremount Nursing Home in Claremorris and the St. Brendan's nursing unit in Mulranny. St. Brendan's has already been forced to cut its bed count from 35 to 24 due to spiralling costs.

While the National Treatment Purchase Fund, NTPF is tasked with addressing such issues, its efforts seem to be inadequate in the face of these escalating situations. I ask the Taoiseach what immediate measures the Government is considering to ensure that private and voluntary nursing homes remain operational and how we prevent the further loss of these invaluable beds and care for our elderly.

While I understand that some nursing homes are closing, there are new ones opening all the time. An additional €45 million has been allocated for nursing homes in the budget for next year, including €10 million set aside to aid private and voluntary nursing homes that are struggling with Health Information and Quality Authority, HIQA compliance. We are very conscious of the financial challenges faced by the nursing home sector, especially the smaller and voluntary nursing homes that might not have access to the economies of scale that larger nursing homes or groups would.

The Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Mary Butler, has regular interactions with the NTPF and has met with it to discuss ways to help the sector, where necessary and appropriate, to complement the normal process of negotiating rate increases when contracts are renewed. Anyone who has a scheduled renegotiation of their deed of agreement this year with the NTPF has seen a significant uplift. The average baseline increase in price per bed has been between 6% and 7%, which of course runs ahead of the rate of inflation for this year and ahead of the average rate of wage growth.