Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for the support he has always afforded to me. We all have a common desire to have the best possible policies and services in place for older people. That process starts by ensuring we identify the growing and diverse needs of older people. I want to see older people being able to age in place and being able to live in their own communities for as long as possible.

We do that by supplying three different types of supports. The first support is daycare services and dementia daycare services. The second is home care. My budget this year to provide home care supports for older people is €700 million. The third is meals on wheels. I actually had a meeting about that today and I am delighted to say that I secured an extra €1.75 million in this year's budget to support the numerous people who deliver meals on wheels. Meals on wheels is so much more than a nutritious meal being dropped at your door. It is that knock on the door and that social contact you might not normally have, especially for people living in rural isolation. Some 400,000 meals are delivered monthly.

Also, 56,000 people receive home care every single day, notwithstanding the fact we have a waiting list of 3,200 people. That is funded, but we cannot put all the staff in place. Thankfully, however, since 1 January of this year, 1,000 permits for those from outside the EU have been put in place. I am very hopeful that by February or March we might see a result on that. There are currently 2,640 permits being used for healthcare workers who came in from other countries to work in nursing homes, so I am positive from that perspective that it will yield a return.

I hope to have the commission on care established by the middle of this year. I will engage with all the stakeholders and, of course, the Deputy himself.

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