Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for that question. The Minister of State, Deputy Butler, who has responsibility for older persons, is leading the work on the safeguarding legislation. I met her as recently as last night to discuss the matter. I will be feeding into that process. I will be focusing on the legislation through the lens of disability. Before coming to this meeting, I confirmed that there will be funding for it from our side to ensure that we are feeding into the work on it from a policy point of view. The Minister of State, Deputy Butler, is leading on the legislation but she will not be all alone in that task. We will be supporting her in respect of it. I welcome any work that is being done on that legislation.

The Deputy is correct in what she said about the statutory home care scheme. We need to train people and provide them with particular skill sets in order that they can deliver home care and home support. If training is required, it needs to be at that level. We are dealing with people who have various issues and we need to be able to react appropriately.

We cannot use the same brush to cover all individuals who are in receipt of home care. We have increased funding for it. I would like to hear the HSE's response in this respect. The answer to the Deputy's question on this scheme is "Yes". We need to have varied proper training and a more uniform delivery of statutory home care provision. This relates to a memorandum of understanding on the integration of services between older persons and disability. If the Minister of State with responsibility for older persons is leading this scheme, we need to ensure the approach is not such that a person seeking support would be told they are not old and therefore that person will not get it and that a person who has a disability will get that support. We should not make that differentiation. We should recognise it but there should be a good relationship to ensure that families should not feel they are in a particular category.