Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Last week, it was announced that front-line healthcare workers were to get a €1,000 bonus. Workers in nursing homes and hospitals are rightly in line for this bonus. It is glaringly obvious that one team of workers, home help workers and carers, have been omitted from this payment. Thousands of home help workers carried out Trojan work during the pandemic. They visited and cared for the elderly in their homes and, in many cases, had to work in a Covid environment. During the pandemic, they were exposed to the risk of contracting Covid on a daily basis while working in uncontrolled environments and doing their best to keep patients safely in their homes, even in some cases where families were not allowed visit.

Surely, given this workload, home help workers and carers in west Cork and beyond should be included in the €1,000 recognition payment. Last week, I met a home help worker in Dunmanway who said to me that it is not so much the money, it is the respect. Can the Tánaiste confirm today that home help workers and carers will be included in the €1,000 recognition payment?

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