Ms Jane Johnstone:

I agree 100% with everything Ms Cox said. I will give my perspective in the context of lived experience. The Deputy mentioned home care workers. I would not be sitting here this morning if it had not been for my home care workers. My older son has respite care. My younger son does not. My older son is in respite for this week. My younger son does not have any respite care. I have a home care worker, who has worked for the family for quite a while, who stayed, looked after him and got him ready for his day service this morning. Home care workers do absolutely fantastic work in holding families together and supporting the person with a disability or the elderly person. They also do fantastic work in allowing, when there is such an absence of appropriate and adequate levels of respite, a small number of breaks for family carers even to get out to do practical tasks such as buy groceries. I am sitting in front of the committee today. I would not be if it had not been for our home care workers.

What home care workers say to me is very much in line with what Ms Cox says in that they do not have the same benefits in a private company they would have if they worked for the HSE. They probably need career progression. Home care work could do with being formalised and professionalised, because these people are professional. Some of the people who work with my sons would be quite young and just out of college. Like any young person, they wish to see they can move forward in their career. We need to put that in place for them. We need to pay them appropriately and make sure they are paid for their transport. They are vital to the sustainability of many families and there really is not enough of them. We certainly need to hold on to the people we have. We need more people to come in to the sector. To do that, we need to change their professional status and bring carers who are working for private companies under the same terms as they would have working for the HSE.