Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

An extra million home help hours are provided for in budget 2020. Given the massive unmet need, the Minister for Health is examining whether he can start allocating the hours now rather than waiting three weeks. The idea is to pull the money forward and start deploying it now. He should be able to know in the next day or two whether that is possible. Certainly it is desirable - I think we would all agree with that.

We are facing difficulties finding home help staff now. As is often the case, when we have the money we do not have the staff and when we have the staff we do not have the money. As we approach full employment it is difficult to find home help staff. Thus, when someone is off sick or on annual leave, difficulties can arise but we will do our best to resolve them.

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