Ms Anne O'Connor:

The home support was tendered a year or so ago. From our perspective, the best mix is to have a blended solution. We have two areas in the country where we have no direct provision of home support. They are all provided by external providers and that presents some challenges. What we find is that it can be difficult to source carers in isolated rural areas at present, and we work closely. When there is a blend of HSE directly-provided services and agencies, we can work closely together. However, it is challenging in terms of being able to secure carers all over the country.

In terms of the cost that the Deputy referenced, we had the tender which went up. In terms of travel time and paying for travel, that impacted on our own employees but also some of the charges coming in from external providers went up in the same way slightly. Our preferred way of working is to have availability of both.