Mr. Éamonn Donnelly:

Fórsa Trade Union welcomes the opportunity to address the committee on issues relating to homecare, including recruitment issues. Fórsa represents more than 30,000 health workers working in hospitals, the community health system and residential and social care settings, as well as at the corporate centre of health service planning and delivery. We represent workers in direct public service employment, such as the HSE and section 38 voluntary hospitals, as well as workers in section 39 agencies and the private sector. Our members include health and social care professionals as well as clerical, administrative, management and technical staff. We consider it one of the many strengths of this union that our members are central to the delivery of the full array of health and welfare services in Ireland. Fórsa is unequivocally on record as being a strong supporter of the community health intervention and servicing model proposed by the Sláintecare report. Indeed, Fórsa and our members played a pivotal role in the process that established community health networks.

I refer to the current landscape of home support services. Home support services are currently delivered in a fragmented manner by the HSE directly, the not-for-profit sector and the for-profit sector. A recent Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, report entitled Demand for the Statutory Home Support Scheme, authored by Dr. Brendan Walsh and Dr. Seán Lyons and published in March 2021, showed that in 2019, 65,346 people accessed home support services amounting to almost 24.7 million hours.

I am having some difficulty with my vision, so I will ask my colleague, Ms Keogh, to complete our opening statement.