Ms Maria Jackson:

To respond to Deputy Louise O'Reilly's point about the difficulty in sourcing home help hours between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m, we mainly represent home help and not-for-profit providers nationwide. All providers provide care 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. In that regard, most of our organisations are reliant on core funding from the HSE, which historically was for the provision of care in the morning Monday to Friday and typically for early intervention care through what were originally domestic type duties. During the years that has changed to personal care which everybody in receipt of care from our organisations now receives. However, we very strongly advocate that the committee consider early intervention care and its effectiveness in keeping people at home, thus reducing the number of hospital admissions.

Deputy Louise O'Reilly also asked about clients having the ability to top up the care they received that was provided and paid for by the HSE. Unfortunately, our organisations are currently unable to provide private top-up paid care. This is affecting the continuity of care clients receive from our organisations because other groups are brought in to provide paid care.