Mr. Joseph Musgrave:

I will take on some of these questions and will start with the Deputy's point about regulation. HCCI, supports an independent regulator. The more pertinent question is the model of regulation. Would it be a compliance model, where inspectors are sent into people's homes, which would be quite invasive? Would it be a licence to operate a model from existing providers? The more interesting and complicated question is how to regulate the sector, rather than who would do it, although I agree the HSE should not do it because of the conflicts of interest.

HCCI does not receive any funding other than from members but, similar to what Mr. McLoughlin was saying, most of our members are operating on legacy rates. The HSE has not updated its hourly rates of pay dating back to 2008. For instance, some carers are going into one home at one rate and into another home at another rate, which is unusual. The tender ties members in for two years and the HSE refused to touch or to reopen it.

I will return to the Deputy's point about national minimum standards because I think that is the largest topic.

No member has reported to me about a 15-minute call.

The rate of pay averages around €14 by the time the higher rate for weekend work is included, as well as holidays and other entitlements. The national minimum standards point ties back to the rate of pay. HCCI has a set of national standards to which every member subscribes. I came to this job only in September and one thing I want to do is to update those standards to perhaps include some of the points about which the Deputy is talking. Other than the HSE tender, the standards of my organisation are the only ones of which I know that apply nationally and against which members are independently audited.

We need to look at professionalising care workers because, at the moment, we commission services based on one hourly rate of pay, regardless of whether it is a legacy rate. We do not ask if someone is high, medium or low dependency, or requires a care worker with a separate set of skills. People in my family are frontline care workers so I know this well. What is the career pathway to develop and incentivise people to get more skills? We want to look at that. The current commissioning system is locked into a cycle of fastest-finger-first bidding to provide the care, rather than taking a holistic approach, which I am hoping this committee is getting to the bottom of, because the Department and HSE do not seem to want to engage with me about this. We are locked into a stalemate whereby there are some good ideas at the table about national minimum standards but the pathway to implementation and further development seems obscure.