Neasa Hourigan (Dublin Central, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State and Professor MacLachlan for those responses. I am going to sidestep into another area, although it is related to multidisciplinary primary care and all of that. I want to raise the issue of home care supports and their availability. There is a commitment in the programme for Government to statutory home care provision. If people have a chronic illness or long-term disability, the level of training home care workers would benefit from is quite important. As we move towards implementing that statutory entitlement and the provision of more home care hours, what training is being set out for those who work in that area?

Given some of the reports we have seen in recent months covering the sad and distressing incidents that have occurred, do the Minister of State and the HSE recognise the need for safeguarding legislation? What do they envisage to be the interaction between largely privately supplied services and community healthcare organisations, CHOs, as we move towards the implementation of Sláintecare? What is their view on the need to be able to interact in a dynamic way? I hope home care will be a major provider and support for people into the future. If it is to work, it will need to have quite dynamic access to services and integrated communication between that service and the primary care system. How do they envisage that might work?