Ms Anne O'Connor:

I completely agree with the Deputy. The notion of having people in hospital who could or should be at home is not one that any of us want to live with. There has been a lot of work done in relation to home support workers. If we go back a few years, our challenge was one of funding. We have two different groups awaiting home support. We have people who have a package and maybe their care needs to be increased and they need more hours and then we have those who are on a waiting list to receive home support.

In the last 18 months or so, we have found a reduction in the number of workers available. This relates, in the main, to two things. The first is that people are not applying for these jobs both in the public and private sector. It used to be that this was a problem in certain parts of the country. For instance, in parts of the south east, unfortunately, there have always been some issues with recruiting these workers into some of the private agencies. However, it is now a national problem. Some of our CHOs are only able to deliver up to 60% of their funded allocation of home support. That is impacting hugely on people such as those the Deputy mentioned - people in hospital who are trying to go home - as well as the disability sector where people are not getting the right in-home supports.

We are working on a number of fronts on this. One challenge is around people not applying for these jobs. They have other income at the moment and are not putting their hands up. Equally, we have identified a problem with training. We are working on a new model to bring people in and providing an internship-type training to try to encourage them. We have found that many of the people who apply do not have the necessary qualifications. They are very well meaning and want to do this work but the reality is that home support work is very rewarding but also very challenging. It is not an easy job.