Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to have the opportunity to contribute on this important motion. I commend Fianna Fáil on bringing it forward because we hear every year of the increasing numbers of people who are without home help hours or have insufficient home help. Indeed, in my constituency of Dublin Bay North, I often meet distressed family members and those who urgently require more home help. There are many reported instances of constituents being approved for home help but not having access to the service because of a perceived lack of resources from the service providers. Often these cases are even categorised as urgent but are still left waiting with little or no help. Week in, week out, I deal with a number of such cases.

Census 2016 showed that there were 637,000 people over 65 years of age, an increase of more than 100,000 or 19.1% on the previous census. Of those, 577,000 were living in private households and there were almost 23,000 in nursing homes. The ESRI has forecast that the demand for home care will increase by 66% up to 2030. We are aware of the figures and the needs. It is the job of the Minister of State, Deputy Jim Daly, to resource that. As stated in the motion before us, however, the health service capacity review puts that increase at 120% because, at that stage, one in six of us will be over 65 years and the number over 85 years will have doubled.

As the motion before us also references, by September 2018, the number of hospital delayed discharges had increased from 481 to 613, and a reported 136,239 hospital bed days were lost because of delayed discharges. I particularly agree with the motion's call that home support should be provided over seven days a week, outside of normal office hours, and to 100% of long-term recipients of social protection payments. A Programme for Partnership Government 2016 committed to "Working to Make our Older Years Better Years". The actions in the motion, if the Government were to follow them assiduously, would significantly move along that path, but we have not seen that so far.

As Deputy Wallace and others have said, the lack of information on this service and that reference to geography are the most frustrating aspects for all of us. It is difficult to ascertain the level of need and the impact. That is why Members from all sides of the House are constantly asking questions about this. For example, in a reply I received to a parliamentary question at the end of last month, the HSE would not provide information on the cost of delivering an additional 5,000 home care packages which I had asked for and instead informed me of the new single funded home support service for older people which has amalgamated the previous home care packages and home help service. The reply also informed me that, nationally, the average cost per client per week for home support services funded by the HSE is estimated to be in the region of €160 per week and that it would cost approximately €41.5 million to deliver home support services to an additional 5,000 people per year. Earlier this year, there were reports that private nursing home places are costing approximately €1,200 per week, an astonishing difference when one thinks about it which, in the spirit of the motion before us, puts the emphasis rightly on home care.

Even today, I received another answer to a parliamentary question, which related to the HSE National Service Plan 2018 targets which provided for 18.25 million home support hours to be delivered to more than 50,000 people. It is difficult for us Deputies to figure out what these hours mean for citizens who, perhaps, have a half an hour a day and who are looking for an additional half an hour. As the leader of Sinn Féin stated recently, what on earth can one do in half an hour?

I warmly support the motion before us and urge the Minister to move towards a funding model which will support the senior citizens throughout the country. Of course, what has happened in home care, as in so much else, relates to the ferocious cuts by the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael led Governments in the austerity years and we must regain all that territory for senior citizens.

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