Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As I mentioned to the Deputy, the information is available locally but has not been collated nationally. That is something the HSE has not done and it believes it would not be possible to allocate the resources to collate those data.

There are a number of reasons for reducing home-help hours. Sometimes it is down to the individual carer for various reasons. In other cases it is due to shortage of funding. We have increased the funding by €40 million for this year, which means that the new base for next year will be €371 million, up from €331 million. As we increase the funding going into home help and home-care packages, that slack will be available for the home-care workers to take up. Unfortunately, I do not have the data the Deputy has requested. It is not accessible to the HSE at the moment, but it is available locally. If the Deputy has any specific local case, she could bring that to me and I could get the information on it.

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