Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. We all share the common objective of improving the quality of life of older people. The home help support is a core service for older people and is highly valued by the service users, their families and the Health Service Executive, HSE, which provides the service. It provides supports that assist older people to live independently in their homes for longer and enables larger numbers of people to return home following acute hospital admission who otherwise would remain in hospital or potentially would be admitted to long-stay residential care.

Over the past number of years, improving access to home support has been a priority for the Government. This can be seen in the way the home support budget has increased from a base of €306 million in 2015 to the expected expenditure of almost €420 million in 2018. Overall, the HSE national service plan provided for more than 17 million home support hours to be delivered to 50,500 people. In addition, a further 156,000 hours relating to adverse weather funding were provided from spring 2018. Intensive home care packages will be delivered to approximately 235 people at any time and will deliver a further approximately 360,000 hours in a full year. Despite this significant level of service provision, demand continues to rise. All those waiting are assessed and provided with a service, if appropriate, as soon as possible having regard to their needs. People being discharged from an acute hospital who are in a position to return home with supports are prioritised. At the end of August, preliminary figures indicate that 6,269 people approved for new or additional home supports were waiting for funding to be made available.

There is a constant increase in demand in this area for understandable reasons. We have an ageing population and there has been a significant increase in the population over the age of 70 years. That trend will continue. We want people to live in their own homes for as long as possible and to give them the supports that allow them to do that. We are putting in place a new statutory scheme for home support. The Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Jim Daly, is working on that. A great deal is happening in this space but I accept that there is much more to be done.

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