Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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I want to go through with Mr. Gloster the finances, planning and all of that. From the figures he has given, it is very cost effective and competitive to have home care workers. From talking to regional managers, I know there is a challenge with recruitment. They tell us there is a problem with recruitment. There was a round of recruitment that passed me by and that I never heard about. In some areas they are having a second go at it to try to increase the numbers on panels and to employ people. Many people would do that job. It is tailor-made for people who are in part-time employment in smaller towns and villages, but one of the key points is to keep them in their local area. Some of the private providers were sending them ten miles to one person and five miles to another person and they all had to be done within the same hour, which is not feasible. We are trying to organise it in clusters so that insofar as possible people would be dealing with an area close to where they live, but also that the times are as close as possible to each other. I know it is hard to always get it right, but staff retention is an issue, although not so much with the HSE carers. I know people who have left because of that. They just could not keep up with the regime. I just want to highlight that for Mr. Gloster.