Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I support the other speakers on this matter. In the previous budget, €666 million was allocated to this area.

An unprecedented amount of money was committed to the home help sector but the problem over the past 12 months has been that they have not be able to fill many of these roles. They simply cannot get the people. I suggested at the Fianna Fáil think-in - this feeds in also to the Tánaiste's Ministry - that we would look in budget 2023 at special taxation which would allow people, after doing the school drop-off in the morning, to be able to provide home help in the community and be able to fulfil the school collection obligation in the afternoon without penalising that person or his or her spouse or partner from a taxation point of view. Taxation treatment here could unleash the potential of people to serve in their community, provide home care and keep people out of the acute hospital setting. I hope it can be considered by the Department and, indeed, the Department of Finance in the lead into budget 2023.

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