Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will come in on home care because I know that the committee has examined this over the past number of weeks. Last year, the HSE provided 20.46 million hours of home support. Some 7.5 million hours were provided directly by the HSE and 12.9 million hours were provided by private providers, as we have seen increased demand for home care. Some 55,000 people receive home care. We are currently challenged because the budget of €666 million is sufficient to deliver home care but the problem is that currently approximately 5,300 people are waiting for home care because we do not have the staff to deliver it. We have approximately 2,000 more people this year looking for home care than needed it last year.