Patrick Costello (Dublin South Central, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I was recently contacted by the daughter of an 89-year-old constituent with advanced Alzheimer's who has recently lost any home care support they had. I am not the first Deputy to raise the issue of home care support and, more importantly, the lack of home care support. While there has been some investment in the area, the challenge is that the individual private companies do not have to take these hours and can avoid providing the support. There is an absolute lack of home carers. Will the Government invest in home care supports being delivered directly by the State, which would provide a much more flexible service? Will we finally remove home carers from the ineligible occupations list and recognise there is a critical skills deficit here and include them on the critical skills list?

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