I want to refer to the barriers to nursing home care. I know about these from my experience of trying to get a place in a nursing home for my mother, who has dementia. She has the type of dementia where she walks a lot, so she is not the ideal patient who will sit down and be quiet all day. Nursing homes seem to have such long lists of people to choose from that she cannot get a bed in one because she would take more care than somebody who will sit down all day and be quiet. That is the first issue.

The second issue relates to the fact that because she has fairly late-stage dementia, she would not be involved in activities in the nursing home. Nursing homes charge up to €160 per week for recreational activities, which some patients will never make use of because they do not have the cognitive ability to take part. When it comes to the fair deal scheme, let us say you have a couple, a husband and wife, and the wife needs to go into care. A little over 80% of her pension will be taken and there will be a stay put on the family home. The husband is left at home with his old-age pension and he is being asked to pay €160 - sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less - out of that for recreational services that will never be used. It does not seem to work out mathematically to take up the fair deal scheme and pay all these extra charges, especially for those who do not have family to help out behind the scenes. This is going to be a barrier, and many people will end up keeping their loved ones at home, regardless of whether they can care for them or not.

Then there is the issue of home help. A person might be entitled to hours, but staffing is a huge issue. There are no staff to be deployed to particular areas. This is an overarching issue that we may need a debate on in the House. We may need to have a look at policies in relation to fair deal and at helping out couples who have no choice but to keep loved ones at home.