Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

That is good. I agree that we now need to have the Minister of State in to see about establishing that group and determine its terms of reference, because time is of the essence.

The critical point is the waiting list that exists. All of us, as Deputies, know that the bar is set pretty high in respect of qualifying for home care. There are currently 5,320 people who have been approved for home care but who are being denied it because of staff difficulties. That is just intolerable.

I raised with the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the question of work permits for people in this sector. Effectively, he said there was not a skills shortage and that the problem was that the contracts of employment being offered are not sufficient to attract people into the sector. It strikes me that there is a bit of passing the parcel here. The contracts of employment are not attractive enough, yet the terms offered by the HSE do not allow for attractive contracts. There seems to be no meeting of minds regarding the HSE and the needs of the sector. Of course, the Government determines all that.

There is much talk about an apprenticeship model. It is up to the commissioning Department to request places for an apprenticeship model. There is now a lot of money available for apprenticeships but the HSE has not put in the requests yet. Do the delegates all agree that we should operate on the basis of an apprenticeship model?