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

I would be the first to acknowledge that we will not meet the demand that will be there this year. We do not have an infinite budget and there are many competing demands that we discuss all day every day on the floor of this House such as more pay for the nurses, the drugs we want approved and so on. There are so many competing budgets, and this is just one more cog in that wheel, but €140 million over a four-year period is a very significant increase by any standard. It has allowed for an increase of 800,000 home help hours this year. I can categorically and regrettably state that we will not meet the demand for home help this year. There is no point in my pretending to dress that up in any way. I am sure the Deputy and I will have this conversation again during this year and that we will debate it many times during Leaders' Questions, but we have a finite budget and, as in all the other areas, the demands are increasing. That is why we have undertaken to do a statutory home care scheme where we can provide to everybody. That is our ambition for 2021 and significant work has been done, even by the Health Research Board, looking at Germany, Sweden, Scotland the Netherlands where they have similar schemes in operation. We are trying to build a scheme along those lines. That is complex challenge.

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