John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I have received a couple of queries about why people cannot choose their own home care provider when they know someone locally, in cases where the HSE cannot allocate one to them.

In my constituency, I have become aware of the issue of childcare. I happen to be the director of a social enterprise. We are not big on social enterprise in Ireland. In Ireland we tend to associate enterprise with profit, but there are many people who are enterprising and would be interested in establishing businesses that are not for profit. I have come across a very interesting organisation in my constituency in Tallaght which provides after-school care for children with special needs. It is a social enterprise. It is a halfway house between private care, which everybody thinks is for profit.

According to the evidence we have heard in this committee, it costs around the same amount for private providers to provide home care as it does for the HSE to do so, if not less. Have we ever considered the social enterprise model? It would mean a service could be provided on a not-for-profit basis but people would be paid reasonable salaries and remunerated accordingly.