Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for his contribution. There is no policy to reduce hours. and end-of-life care is always a priority for the Government. The Government remains committed to supporting people to age in place at home in their communities with access to wraparound supports, including day care and dementia-specific day care services, meals on wheels and home care.

As I mentioned earlier, delivering this enhanced capacity for support requires substantial recruitment and significant work is under way to address the strategic workforce challenges in this regard. The HSE also continues to advertise on an ongoing basis for healthcare support assistants and recruits as many suitable candidates as possible. The Department of Health is continuing to develop a regulatory framework for providers, which will comprise primary legislation for the licensing of providers and secondary legislation in the form of regulations and HIQA national standards. The HSE has begun the recruitment process for 128 interRAI care needs facilitators to progress the national roll-out of interRAI as a standard assessment tool for care needs in the community to determine prioritisation and levels of care required. The HSE is also progressing the recruitment of several key posts to support the establishment of the national home support office.

I was also recently involved in a Zoom call with the Minister for Health and the Taoiseach, and Oireachtas members from the mid-west region. This came on the back of the issue in the region. The specific issue raised by the Deputy also came up as part of that discussion and the point was correctly made that an employment regulation order is also needed for people who work as home carers. This key element is lacking in making this a viable career and option for people to go into work where they will have certainty in this regard. This point was also made on that call with the Minister and the Taoiseach and they were both accepting of it because we have done similar in the child care setting, where, as the Deputy will be aware, an employment regulation order was recently issued to give certainty to people working in that sector. The Deputy asked a specific question about my Department in this regard. It is the intention, and the Higher Education Authority has sought expressions of interest from our higher education institutions, to put on additional courses to train home care assistants and allied health professionals in this area.

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