Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wish to thank all the Deputies who contributed to this important debate in the House. Once again I would like to thank Deputies Burke and Higgins for bringing forward this Private Members' Bill. The debate this evening has been very useful and the early discussion of the issues concerned will be of great benefit as my Department continues to progress proposals to regulate the home support sector.

I thank all of the Deputies for their contributions in what is known as the graveyard shift, late on a Thursday evening. It is great to see so many Deputies present and I thank them for being here to discuss the Bill proposed by Deputies Burke and Higgins. I welcome the fact that Deputy Patricia Ryan is the spokesperson for older people for Sinn Féin and I would be happy to meet her some day. I have already met Deputy Ward who is the Sinn Féin spokesperson on mental health. I would have no problem meeting Deputy Ryan some day to discuss the various issues about which she is concerned. She was quite right when she said that home care is not confined to older people - far from it. We have many children with intellectual disabilities, adults with disabilities and many others who need home care and it is so important that we get it right.

I accept Deputy Clarke's point that statutory should mean statutory. She spoke at length about a fair deal for farmers, which is something I have been working on since taking up my role about ten weeks ago. The situation last year was that legislation was before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health for pre-legislative scrutiny. Then we had the Christmas break, followed by the election. The committee has been reconvened and I have written to the clerk to find out the status of the legislation because I would like to move it before Christmas if possible. It will have an enormous effect on farmers and small business owners. As we all know, under the fair deal scheme, there is a charge on an individual's property of 7.5% for three years but there is no cap for farmers or small business owners. I am very conscious of that fact and fully aware of it. I met representatives of Macra na Feirme last week who raised it with me. I will also be meeting representatives of the IFA this week. I assure the Deputy that I am very conscious of the issue and thank her for highlighting it again tonight.

Having heard Deputy Cronin's contribution, I will listen to a podcast of Professor Cusack's interview. The Deputy is quite right to say that the pandemic has borne down hardest on our older population. It certainly bore down very hard on elderly people living in nursing homes. Approximately 54% of all deaths to date occurred in the nursing home sector and I am acutely aware of that. The HSE and the Department of Health are working very hard with the nursing home sector to make sure that what occurred earlier this year does not happen again. We are working to ensure that they have the necessary PPE, the staff they need and that adequate infection prevention and control measures are in place. As the Deputy knows, the expert panel's review of nursing homes was published recently. Three meetings have been held already to meet the sector's short-term requirements in advance of the winter because we could be facing into a winter of the vomiting bug, influenza and Covid-19. I assure Deputies that I am on top of all of that and I am happy to work with them on these issues. It is great to hear so many Deputies interested in our older people. It was clear from everyone's contributions that they care and it is great to see that.

There seems to be consensus across the House on this issue. We may have different views on how this can best be achieved but we ultimately all want the same result, that is, a comprehensive regulatory framework placed on a statutory footing to protect recipients of home care and ensure that a standard, high quality, consistent service is in place across the country. A high quality, consistent home support service focused on keeping people well in their homes and communities for as long as possible is a key enabler to ensuring that people across a continuum of care get the right care in the right place at the right time. A comprehensive regulatory framework is a crucial component of this.

As the Minister of State with responsibility for mental health and older people, I was delighted to be part of the launch this morning of the HSE's winter plan. It is very important to me that this plan has a strong focus on supporting older people. Our aim must be to provide as much care as possible in the community but where people do require hospital care, we must enable them to be discharged back to their own home, with support in the community, as soon as possible. The last thing we want to see is older people in acute beds in hospitals during the winter when the only place they want to be is at home. I was delighted to see the focus in the plan on providing a very substantial increase in the number of home care hours available. We know that Irish people are living longer than ever before which is very welcome news but we need to ensure they live well. In that context, we need to do more. I sat on the other side of the House for the last four years and on every opportunity I got, I raised the issue of home care supports, wraparound supports, home care packages and so on. At one stage there were between 6,000 and 7,000 people waiting for supports. Hopefully the 5 million additional home care hours announced today will enable us to really tackle those waiting lists.

I appreciate that Deputy Burke must be somewhat frustrated at the perceived lack of progress but I assure the House that my Department is committed to advancing this work as a priority. While there is no doubt that the Private Members' Bill we are discussing in the House this evening is very well intentioned, for the reasons I have already set out, I do not believe the approach proposed is the appropriate way to progress this issue. As I have already outlined to the House, my Department is progressing a bespoke regulatory framework for home support services along three strands. The amendment I have tabled this evening will provide the time for my Department to consider the issues raised during the debate this evening and determine how best to address these issues in the context of the development of the appropriate regulatory framework. As I said earlier, I look forward to working with Deputies Burke and Higgins and any other interested Deputies to progress this work as a matter of urgency over the next 12 months.

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