Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The restrictions on new applications for home help services are appalling. This regressive decision will have knock-on negative consequences for families, carers and the wider health service. On the one hand, we have the Government saying it will facilitate people growing old in their own home and, on the other, it is restricting the means to do so.

It is important to remember we have an ageing population. Over the next 30 years, the number of people in Ireland over the age of 65 will double and the number over the age of 85 will quadruple. Despite the increasing life expectancy, chronic illness is on the rise and, therefore, people will need to be cared for in their home to take the pressure off acute hospital services. Real progress in meeting the challenge on home care must be made. It is the preferred option for older people and well acknowledged that the care based around the home is vital for keeping people active in their communities, which in turn has enormous health benefits.

I can cite to the Minister of State particular personal experiences of people in my own constituency and I am sure he has encountered similar experiences himself. People are under enormous pressure because, quite rightly, they are being allocated home help hours because of physical and chronic illness, but they are not being allocated a person or a worker to provide that service to them. We know that providing a service to people in their home costs the State a fraction of what it costs to have them in a nursing home. Not only is it the proper thing to do, the ethical thing to do and the most economic thing to do, it is the common sense thing to do.

We know there are extraordinary people working as home help carers and providers. However, they are put to the pin of their collar and are expected to do the impossible. They are expected to be at a house to provide a service to an older person, perhaps only for 15 minutes - to get them up, get them dressed, get them their breakfast and then to move on to the next person. As we know, older people and people who are ill may not be able to move at the pace of an able-bodied or well person. However, the home care service they are being provided with is for 15 minutes, or perhaps half an hour in the best-case scenario.

I recently attended a meeting of Family Carers Ireland and I have spoken at length on this before in the House. We heard from the families affected by these lengthy delays in having a home care service provided in their homes. It is putting them under enormous pressure, physically, emotionally and mentally. They are under great strain in their own homes, not only to provide care for their sick or elderly loved ones, be it a parent, sibling or otherwise, but they are being given false promises that they have been allocated home help when the HSE cannot provide it because it does not have the services or the personnel in place to do it.

The HSE Service Plan 2019 pledged that 17.9 million home support hours would be delivered this year. However, it has been reported that this service is largely closed to new applicants until next November, which is appalling. As I said, I could cite numerous instances in which services are not being provided. One gentleman who is terminally ill not only had his home help hours reduced but following his committal to hospital for a short time he could not go home because his reduced home help hours had been withdrawn, which meant he was taking up an acute bed in a hospital when he could have been at home. These are the types of scenarios with which we are faced every day in our clinics. I look forward to hearing the Minister of State's response on the matter.

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