Shane Cassells (Meath West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State and I appreciate his reply and the information on the details on the review. In the three years since I have been elected, the biggest issue in my constituency office, after housing, is health, in particular the issue of home help hours. In a county with a population of 200,000 people, it is natural that the elderly population is increasing and the care required for the elderly should be paramount. Last year in particular, we were inundated with cases and pleas for help with securing home help hours, which had been reduced from 500,000 to 464,000, which was a drop of 7%. This was far in excess of the nationwide drop of 1.5%. I appreciate what the Minister of State has touched on in terms of the difficulties with staffing. It is something we are seeing as having an impact in the northern part of the county. Across the border in adjoining counties such as Cavan and Westmeath, staff are available but because of the county boundaries they cannot work in Meath. I ask the Minister of State to look at this as part of the review because the staffing issue is key. The system is under a lot of pressure and I appreciate the Trojan work done by the home support co-ordinators, but as part of the review I ask the Minister of State to look at this aspect also because the drop is significant. It is 7.2% as opposed to the national drop of 1.5%.

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