Ms Siobhán McArdle:

I am happy to take that question. Home support, or supporting people to live safely and independently in their home where they have additional care needs, is a key policy in the programme for Government. The HSE is getting an investment in the current year of €670 million to provide home support services. Compared with what has been provided over the past four years, that is a very significant increase, in excess of €250 million. This year, we have provided an additional 2.9 million hours of home support, which means that throughout the country, people who are assessed as needing additional care, whether for assistance with daily living, self-care, mobilising out of bed, washing, dressing and so on, are assessed on a standardised care assessment and are prioritised for those home support hours. They support individuals, families and communities to help individuals to remain safely in their home.

The Department of Health is implementing change to, and reform of, the home support system. This will introduce regulation and standards into the area of home supports in order that we can be assured throughout the country that people who have been assessed as needing home support will access an equally high standard and safe levels of care. That will involve licensing of our home support providers and work is ongoing in that regard.

Furthermore, standardisation is happening throughout the country in order that all providers of home support and our healthcare systems will use similar assessment tools and care banding. This will ensure that regardless of whether it is in Cork, Dublin or Galway, persons with the same type of clinical need will access equitable levels of home support. It is a growing area and the investment has been considerable over recent years. At one point at the start of 2020, many people were awaiting home support because the funding was not in place. The addition of considerable funding over recent years has meant that is no longer a barrier and waiting times have reduced, but we are aware some families and individuals in the community are still waiting for a number of weeks for their home support because we, the HSE and other providers are trying to catch up in our services to recruit sufficient numbers of home support workers to meet that increased demand.