Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I can assure the Deputy that there are not enough resources but the particular issue he is experiencing in his area is a capacity issue involving staff availability. It is the same in my area of west Cork, as I mentioned. There are 45,000 hours which have been paid for but not used in CHO 2, which is a management issue for the HSE to address. It has assured me that it will up the ante in that regard and spend every euro it has been given on home help by year end. I will continue to monitor the situation. We spent €409 million on the provision of home help hours and increased funding by €18.25 million this year. We hope to increase it again next year; we have increased it every year.

Deputy Chambers asked about the two-year timeline. It took seven years to bring about the fair deal scheme, from conception to implementation. I do not intend to spend seven years on this but it will take time to address the myriad issues and faults which exist, many of which are structural such as standards, inspection, funding, availability, qualifications, complaints procedures, standardisation, equity and transparency.

Deputy Chambers asked about the coming together of the two funding models. That has been done for a very progressive and positive reason, that is, to ensure people do not have to apply a second time when they move to a more intensive home care package and to ensure increased transparency.

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