Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

With all due respect, the Deputy was previously a Minister of State in the Department of Health. She understands that I am constrained by my budget. My budget is €723 million for home care this year, which is a significant amount. She mentioned failures but 56,980 people will receive home care today. A total of 3,524 new applicants are funded waiting for supports but 2,908 people are already receiving supports, but not the maximum hours advised. It is important to put that on the record.

With regard to the tender, we are dealing with legacy issues that have been there for many years. This is one of the issues that all the organisations brought up when I met with them. The Deputy asked me to meet an organisation from north County Dublin, and I did.

On travel time and the living wage, we have to work with the budget we have to deliver the hours we have.

I think we have made significant changes to the tender.

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