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

As we develop a new scheme, it is important to continue to invest and see our funding increase and the Government has committed to continue its investment. This year, we will see €30 million of the €40 million announced for the winter initiative go into our home care packages, with an additional €10 million on top of that. The nursing home support scheme, which took seven years to devise and has a budget of more than €930 million, is a scheme for residential care. We need to ensure that those who are entering the nursing home support scheme cannot be cared for or provided with that support at home. The difficulty we face is that the demand far outweighs our ability to provide the support at home. There is an urgency to it, but it is important that we do this right. Some 70% of home care is currently provided through an informal arrangement, with private providers and family members, which is why the public consultation is so important. The other 30% is provided through the HSE.

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