Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We want to promote home care as a viable career opportunity. I worked very closely with the former Minister of State, Deputy English. On 1 January this year - we are six weeks into the process now - 1,000 permits were issued for people from outside the EU to come here and provide home care. We hope they will do so. This approach worked in the nursing home sector, where 2,640 permits have been issued. That is important.

On the Deputy's initial question, in order to put in place this statutory home care we need the interRAI assessors. We have funding for 128 of them and we are currently recruiting them.

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