Ciara Conway (Waterford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to have the opportunity to raise this matter, which I have raised previously at the Joint Committee on Health and Children. Currently, Waterford is without a hospice and it is not only Waterford that is affected but the whole region of Waterford, Wexford, Carlow, Kilkenny and Tipperary, taking in a population of 0.5 million. As we approach 2015, we are still in the shameful situation where the south east of Ireland does not have a dedicated hospice building.

Work is underway to address this, thanks to the hard work of the local hospice movements across the south east, in particular in Waterford. A design team was appointed this summer and meetings have been getting underway with the architects. It is hoped the planning application for the unit will be lodged in March 2015 and that the building will start in the summer of 2016, to be finished by the end of 2017. That is all well and good, and we look forward to seeing the work progressing, but it is currently costing Waterford hospice approximately €600,000 annually to provide home care services. Most of this amount - 67% - has been raised through donations from coffee mornings, sunflower days and local fund-raising by very loyal supporters.

The HSE provides 33% of the remaining funding required. There is a great deal of money being raised and spent locally on the hospice home care packages. From my work with the hospice board, led by the chairperson, Danette Connolly, I know that it has always said that the HSE locally has been very supportive and helpful.

While the HSE is helpful, money talks. I have a rather alarming document, the response to a recent parliamentary question from me requesting a detailed breakdown of the funds. It makes for stark reading. In 2014, Milford Care Centre in Limerick received €11.5 million; Galway Hospice, €3.36 million; North West Hospice in Sligo, €2.59 million; Our Lady’s Hospice in Harold’s Cross, €13.23 million; Marymount Hospice in Cork, €6.5 million; and St. Francis Hospice in Raheny, €7.1 million. These hospices receive between €3 million and €13 million each year to fund services for people at the end of their lives.

The picture in the south east, however, is not pleasant. Until September 2014, the Waterford hospice movement received the miserly sum of €140,000; the Carlow-Kilkenny home care team, €160,000; the Wexford team, €150,000; and the local hospice movement in south Tipperary, €170,000. The combined hospice service in the south east received €620,000 from the HSE until September of this year.

We do not begrudge the money to Limerick or Sligo or anywhere else for those caring for people who are very unwell, managing pain and at the end of their lives. The south east hospice normally gets approximately €800,000 per annum, still the lowest amount for any region in the country. It is hard to read these figures in the awareness that not only are the people across Waterford, Wexford, Carlow, Kilkenny and south Tipperary being asked to fundraise for home care services but also to raise €6 million towards the palliative care unit. Anyone can see from these figures that the south east is missing out on a very big piece of the pie.

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