Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for her words of condolence to the family, friends, constituents and party of Seymour Crawford, who is being buried this afternoon in Monaghan. I had the opportunity to visit the house yesterday. Many of us served with Seymour for a period. He truly was a wonderful public representative, a gentle giant and a good friend to many of us. There will be an opportunity at a later date to pay tribute to him in a more substantial way.

With regard to home care, the Government, HSE and health policy very much favour it. It enables older people, but not just older people, to get out of hospital much quicker. In many cases, good home care means they never have to go to hospital at all. It also means people who need it, particularly elderly citizens, are able to spend much more time in their homes before they have to go into long-term residential care.

The Deputy referred to 2011 and 2012. I have no doubt she is correct in what she said in that regard but, of course, it is not 2011 or 2012; it is now 2018. There has been a considerable increase in resources and funding for home care during the past three years. In 2015, for example, the budget for home care was €306 million. This year it is €420 million, representing an increase of more than 30% in the past three years alone. An additional €1 billion will be provided for health services next year. That has not yet been allocated. I am certain some of it will be allocated for extra home help and home care packages. We need to make sure, however, that the €1 billion gets to the patients. We need to come together as a House and make sure it does not get lost in red tape and in meeting pay demands and other demands. We must make sure it goes to the patients and is allocated for extra home help and home care packages, new medicines, new services and new equipment. The big challenge we face collectively in this House over the next couple of months is making sure the €1 billion, or as much of it as possible, gets to the patients, which means better care for them, including extra home help and extra home care packages.

In 2018, the HSE service plan provided for 17 million home help hours. This allocation provided home help to 50,500 people. We acknowledge absolutely that there will be a need for additional resources next year; that is planned. We acknowledge that there are inconsistencies in waiting times from one region to the next. In some places, the waiting time is as little as 24 days while, in others, it is six to nine months, on average. It is, of course, a policy dilemma. When one allows for regional autonomy, there will be regional variation, but we need to bear that in mind.

In line with the Sláintecare plan and the Sláintecare implementation strategy, we plan to develop a statutory scheme for home care, very much using the fair deal model. People can now apply to the scheme for long-term care. If they qualify for it, they will get long-term care in approximately four weeks but, because we do not have a statutory scheme of that kind for home care, some people may get home care within 24 days while others may have to wait for six to nine months. We believe we now need to establish a statutory scheme for home care that is not the same as the fair deal scheme but that works on that model, which has proven to be a success.

See this speech in context