Máire Hoctor (Tipperary North, Fianna Fail)

I will be taking the Adjournment matter on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Mary Harney.

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue as it provides me with an opportunity to reaffirm the Government's commitment to services for older people generally and, in particular, to the importance attached to developing home help services locally.

Government policy on older people is to support people to live in dignity and independence in their own homes and communities for as long as possible. When this is not feasible, the health service supports access to quality long-term residential care, where this is appropriate. This policy approach is renewed and developed in the latest partnership agreement, Towards 2016.

The Government's objective of continued development of community-based services for older persons is reflected in the funding given to the system in recent times and I am glad the Deputy acknowledged this. In the budgets of 2006 and 2007 over €400 million was provided to enhance service developments across the sector. Of this, just over €190 million was for community-based services over the two years.

Arising from budget 2008, a full-year package of €22 million has been allocated for new services for older people. This gives a total funding of over €422 million for new services for older people over the past three years.

Regarding the specific area of home help services, an additional €33 million was given in 2006, which funded an extra 1.75 million home help hours. This was augmented by a further €18 million in 2007 that resulted in 780,000 extra hours coming on-stream.

In 2007 the highlights of community-based services for older persons provided by the HSE nationally included the following: over 12.3 million home help hours; nearly 55,000 people had availed of home help services by the end of the year; over 4,000 home care packages assisted some 10,500 clients during the course of the year and these packages included an important home help element in many cases; and the use of over 21,000 day centre and respite places.

The new funding package of €22 million provided in the recent budget is designed to enhance important community initiatives, including €4.6 million additional expenditure by the HSE for 200,000 extra home help hours this year. The HSE expects to provide about 11.98 million home help hours nationally in 2008.

The new services coming on-stream will improve the service delivery thresholds that the Government already had in place. In this context, nearly €56 million has been provided in the last three years for new home help services, thus expanding the service nationally by nearly 2.75 million hours over this period.

As the Deputy is aware the Health Service Executive has the responsibility for the management and delivery of health and personal social services, including the operational details relating to home help for the Roscommon area.

The HSE has provided the following information. The total number of clients in receipt of home help services in County Roscommon in January was 808, while the number of new applications for the month was 108. The total number of home help hours provided for this period was 19,990. With regard to the most recent local demand, the HSE indicates that 14 clients are waiting to start the service and 25 existing clients await increased hours.

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