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

I thank the Deputies for raising the important issue of home help. As they will know, no politician has any role in deciding who gets home help or how many hours they get. Those are decisions for clinicians and managers. However, I can say that this afternoon the HSE will publish its service plan for 2020, which was approved by Cabinet this morning. It has a budget of €17 billion, the highest ever. For the first time, there will be more than €1 billion in funding for mental health and more than €2 billion for disability. It will provide for 3,000 extra staff to be hired next year as well as extra beds, additional funding for voluntary hospices, 40,000 extra personal assistant hours and 1 million extra home help hours.

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