Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I want to return to the issue that Deputy Mary Lou McDonald raised with the Taoiseach yesterday, that is, home help hours. In recent weeks, we have learned that the HSE has effectively suspended the allocation of home help hours to new applicants until November of this year. The HSE also confirmed that there is to be a reduction in the number of recycled hours or reallocating of hours. This comes at a time more than 6,000 people are waiting for home care supports. There is no doubt that this will have a major impact on older citizens in need of care and their families, and on people with disabilities and their carers. It will also have a major impact on the wider community because reducing home help hours places pressures on our hospitals as a result of delayed discharges. It forces older people who are fit to be at home into nursing homes. These people want to be at home. They want to be in their own environment. They have been medically discharged and can go home provided the supports are in place. However, they cannot go home because the home care supports are simply not in place as a result of this decision.

All of this is happening because the HSE says it needs to balance its budget for 2019. The Taoiseach said yesterday, in response to a question from Deputy McDonald, that the budget for home care supports has increased. I accept that, although it has increased significantly less than the amount we in Sinn Féin called for at the time. The HSE has said that the increase had not translated to an increase in the number of hours of care that was expected. The reality is that the budget increase has been eaten up by demographic pressures and service provision. It is not even standing still compared to last year.

The real measure of the performance, if we need a real measure, is to look at some of the facts. There are now in excess of 6,000 people waiting for home care supports. Countless others have had their home care provision cut by half an hour here or an hour there. Now, we have a freeze on reallocating additional hours to patients until November and the recycling of other hours.

We know home care support is good value for money. We know it represents excellent value for money in the immediate term, the medium term and the long term because it allows people to remain in their homes and go safely from hospital to their own environments and settings but, without the home care supports or home help hours, patients are forced to remain in hospitals. This represents a drastic inefficiency within the health service. It has a significant cost and is a major burden on patients and their families. Individuals either have to remain in hospital or nursing homes or else families are forced to seek private operators and pay for the costs themselves. Neither of these options represents value for money - we know that clearly.

I am asking the Taoiseach what we asked yesterday. Will he give us an undertaking to look at where the funding can be found within the HSE budget to ensure that additional home help hours are provided for the rest of the year for those patients who are in need of them? That this would ease the budgetary pressures on other sections of our health service. Will the Taoiseach commit to doing this quickly?

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