Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy O'Sullivan for raising this very important issue, and for giving me an opportunity to address it.

Since budget 2021, I have secured an additional €207 million in funding for home support. This year, the overall home support budget will be more than €700 million. I am probably the first Minister of State that has ever stood here who has the capacity to provide every home care hour that is needed in the country, but I do not have the staff to deliver it. This funding will enable the HSE to progress the development of a reformed model of service delivery to underpin the statutory scheme for the financing and regulation of home support services. This will fund nearly 24 million hours.

The dementia-specific proportion of the new home support hours increased from 5% in 2021, 11% last year, and this year in 2023 I will have 15% that is dementia specific. The delivery of home support hours in communities is increasing, in line with enhanced investment. Older people want to age well at home. There are three things that can mean an older person can age well at home: home care supports; access to day-care centres; and meals on wheels. These three are the triangle that means people can age well at home.

As of November 2022, 56,429 people were in receipt of the service. At the moment we have approximately 56,500 people who receive home care every day. There were 3,240 new applicants funded and waiting for supports, and 2,819 people were already receiving supports but not the maximum hours advised, such as the gentleman the Deputy spoke about. Seven people were assessed and waiting on funding. Whereas previously people were waiting on funding, that is not the case anymore. Last year, up until the end of November, we delivered 19 million hours of home supports. I expect this to land some place in and around 21 million hours. Specifically in the context of Cork and Kerry CHO 4, we have seen an increase in those waiting in that area. Between January and November last year, preliminary data show that more than two million hours had been provided in Cork to more than 7,000 clients. At the end of November the waiting list in Cork stood at 429 people waiting on additional hours - so they had some form of supports but not the full package that was recommended - and 589 were new applicants. We have seen unprecedented demand for new home care supports. As I have said, 589 were new applicants.

Last year, I established a strategic workforce advisory group which came back to me with 16 recommendations. I accepted all these recommendations as quickly as I could. As of 1 January 2023, and working with my colleague, the former Minister of State, Deputy English, I have secured 1,000 employment permits which will allow home care workers from non-EU-EEA countries the opportunity to work in Ireland. This is an immediate intervention to support the sector. We did that previously for the nursing home sector and at the last count we had 2,500 people who came in on permits. I would be very hopeful that in the next month or two, we will see people who would be prepared to come in here. The average person provides interventions to about six people a day. If we could get 500 or 600 people in, it would almost clear the waiting list. In conjunction with wider sectoral reforms which are in train, implementation of the group's recommendations will have a real and lasting impact on addressing our workforce challenges.

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