Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

One of the issues about home care provision is that, currently, only some 40% is provided by the HSE itself and it outsources to the private sector about 60% of the workload. The issue of how this sector develops is going to be intimately involved with the negotiating position of IBEC. Personally, I favour a development agency, much as is now promised for the childcare sector. Like the previous speaker, I believe we will need an REA in the sector, just as we have had in the childcare sector, and we will need to develop the skills and the process of recruitment and apprenticeship. We will need to do a lot of things in this sector.

I recognise there are contradictions within IBEC's own membership. Some people who do not employ carers see it in a very different light and see this as cost-increasing and so on. Does IBEC have the structures to move this debate on? Something like 20 million hours are now provided by the State and if we move to the statutory option, we will be going up to 42 million, so we will be doubling the number of care hours, although that will obviously happen over time and we will not do it overnight. How will the private sector position itself within that? It is a massive job to double in scale, attract the workers and attract the skills. I would be interested to hear what IBEC's attitude is to the development challenge that it is effectively posing to us because it is saying we should double the provision.