Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There were 12,000 home help workers employed directly by the HSE in 2008, and now there are just over 5,000. I am glad that Minister of State, Deputy Butler, is here. The system is broken in many ways. What true evaluation has been done of the impact of the policy of outsourcing and privatisation? We can do all of the advertising in the world, but the system is now broken to an extent that we will not attract the workers we need. Current workers are going from Billy to Jack and do not know what they are doing from one week to the next. We have to re-examine the system and go back to what was being done in 2008, when we had a system that met people's needs. I know of elderly people in Mayo who are being put to bed at 5.30 p.m. on a summer's evening because they have to fit in with the system that is broken.

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