Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Work is ongoing in the Department to progress the development of the new home support scheme. This involves a lot of complicated work, as the Deputy will understand. There is a regulatory framework comprising primary legislation for the licensing of home support providers, secondary legislation in the form of regulations and HIQA national standards that are in development. All this has the aim of ensuring all service users are provided with high-quality care.

Two Bills are being worked on and I hope to have them in the House before the summer recess. These relate to the licensing of home support providers and the HIQA national standards that are in development. In order to put the scheme in place we need regulation, funding and reform of service delivery.

We commenced a pilot in November 2021 in east Westmeath in community healthcare organisation, CHO, 8. This was the first of the four pilot sites. The three others came into operation in January 2022 in Tuam, Athenry and Loughrea in CHO 2, in Bandon, Kinsale and Carrigaline in CHO 4 and in Ballyfermot and Palmerston in CHO 7. They all started but because we were in the throes of Covid at the time, we allowed the pilot to operate for longer than initially expected. The data collection phase of the home support pilot concluded in August 2022 and I expect that report in the next couple of weeks.

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