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

Every hour that is available will be used up. All funding that has been allocated for home help and home-care packages will be used up. The 2016 national service plan provides for 10.4 million home-help hours. Home-care packages are measured separately but we need to move towards measuring them in the same way.

On the question of home-care packages, we will be moving from 15,450 people to approximately 21,000 people because of the additional funding that has been provided this year. If we start next year from a higher base and continue to increase it, as we have promised in our programme for partnership Government, then those figures will increase further. It is a major priority for me and is a priority for the Department. We will continue to increase the funding and increase the support services. That will also help the workers.

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