Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue and I welcome the opportunity to discuss day care centres because they are such an important provision for older people. There are three key points in supporting older people to live well in their own homes: home care, day care centres and meals on wheels. When the three are working in collaboration with each other, it makes an important difference to an older person's life.

As the Deputy will be aware, the HSE has operational responsibility for planning, managing and delivering health and personal social services including day centres. A wide range of core services are provided for older persons, including home support, day care, community supports in partnership with voluntary groups, such as the Sligo LEADER group the Deputy mentioned, and intermediate care as well as long-stay residential care when remaining at home is no longer feasible. These services are fundamental to the health and well-being of our older population.

Access to day centres can make an important contribution by providing, as the Deputy said, invaluable support, advice and social interaction for older people who may, for many reasons, be experiencing isolation and loneliness. Older people also benefit from increased physical activity, cognitive stimulation, enhanced nutrition, healthcare monitoring and social work support. Day centres are also an important indirect resource for carers. They play a key role in enabling older people to live independently in their own communities.

The Deputy is as passionate as I am in wanting to see the resumption of day care services following their necessary closure in 2020 in response to Covid. In 2021, a general manager within older persons' services was requested to take the lead role on the resumption of day care services for older people. A day care focus group with both HSE and cross-organisational representation was established. During the pandemic, a risk assessment of each day care centre in the country was carried out. Some were not fit for purpose as regards infection prevention and control measures. Some did not even have hot running water in the bathrooms. We took this opportunity to reconfigure some day care centres. Key issues in reopening included staff being redeployed, some buildings no longer being fit for purpose under new guidance and others having challenges associated with HIQA requirements. The HSE allocated more than €6 million to the community health organisations between 2021 and 2022, within existing resources, to assist with the reopening of services and the expansion of existing services, where possible.

The reopening of day centres for older people as quickly and as safely as possible remains a priority for me. In budget 2023, I secured additional funding of €4.1 million for service resumption. The current target is to open 333 day care centres. At the end of October, 300 were open. Some 315 will have reopened by Christmas. We will also have 40 dementia-specific day care centres open by Christmas.

I have been working very closely with the Alzheimer's Society of Ireland to ensure that people with dementia can receive these supports. Like the Deputy, I have visited many daycare centres in the past few months and older people are so happy to be back and re-engaging again. Some of the centres are not open five days, four days or three days a week, like they were previously, because of staffing challenges but we are trying to work through that. The Deputy will be aware, as all Deputies will be, that many day care centres were dependent on community employment schemes to deliver some of the supports and because we are almost at full employment now, we have lost some of that resource that was available.

The reference to St. Patrick’s Community Hospital was not in the original question and, therefore, I do not have the detail on it but I will certainly look at it for the Deputy and I will return with more information in my supplementary response.

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