Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I commend Deputy O'Reilly on tabling the motion before the House. I also commend the healthcare workers who do such Trojan work for so many people. Unfortunately I cannot commend the Minister of State's efforts in this area. While he may say that there are increased hours, the lived experience of the people who contact me and every other Deputy in this House is that they cannot get these hours because they are not there. Any logical assessment tells us that there is pent-up demand. There is more demand than there are hours available. Our population is ageing so we will have more demand and an increasing number of people who require home help hours, but we do not have the hours to match this demand. The problem is that the demand is growing faster than hours are being put into provision. Every logical person who looks at this issue understands that this is the best investment that can possibly be made in any part of the healthcare system because it immediately ensures that people are kept well rather than being taken care of when they have fallen ill. This is the stitch-in-time model that we all know needs to be introduced.

An example of what is involved relates to a woman whose family contacted me recently. She went into hospital in Sligo in the middle of May, some six weeks ago. Ten days later, she was informed that she could go home with a home care package. The package was approved pending funding. She is still in hospital. The position is the same for many other people. I could pick out several more individuals who are in the same situation. This is an absolute crisis for their families. Saying that more hours are available does not solve the problem for the family of the woman to whom I refer or for other families.

There needs to be recognition of the problem that exists. There are more than 200 people on the waiting list in Sligo-Leitrim. A couple of months ago, I was told that there was nobody on the waiting list. If, however, I rang up looking for home care hours for somebody, I was informed that there were none available because there was a waiting list. There is a lot of inconsistency as to what is happening. Other Deputies referred to parts of the country in which there are no waiting lists. Perhaps if they went back in a month's time they would find that a waiting list has appeared while the numbers on the list in another area have decreased. That is the problem. We cannot trust the numbers coming to us from the Department of Health. That is another issue.

A further issue which clearly needs to be acknowledged immediately is the withdrawal of home help hours for people with mental health issues and intellectual disabilities. We see that all over the place. Unless people are chronically ill, they do not get home care hours. People in these other circumstances deserve and need those home care hours as much as anybody else.

This motion is about coming to a solution. I encourage the Government to support it and to provide the money upfront. Money put into home care hours will pay dividends in the long run.

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