Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. I welcome the opportunity to discuss day centres because they are such an important provision for older people. Almost 300 day centres are currently back in operation. During the Covid-19 pandemic, we did a risk assessment of each day centre the length and breadth of the country to ensure they were complying with infection prevention and control measures. It is great to see that. In the next two weeks, I will be in the Deputy's constituency when I will open the Mallow dementia-specific day centre, which will be the 50th dementia-specific day centre in the country. We have made a lot of progress.

As the Deputy knows, a key focus of our Sláintecare reform programme is recognising the need to enable older people to age well at home and in their communities. In order to do that, I always speak about the triangle of supports we need to provide, which is composed of home care, day care and Meals on Wheels. Those are the three most important things and working in collaboration with each other, they make an important difference to the life of an older person.

There should be no doubt that investment in social care and home support has been a substantial priority for me and the Government. In May this year, I was delighted to announce the allocation of €5.25 million in funding for Meals on Wheels and day centres for older people. In addition, a further €2.1 million was secured for dementia-specific community day services.

There are currently 397 people in the east Cork area in receipt of home support, equating to just over 2,040 hours per week. There are three HSE-funded Meals on Wheels organisations providing more than 1,200 meals to 112 clients per month. There are also three day centres operating in east Cork, as the Deputy knows. Midleton day care is a HSE-operated day centre currently operating Monday to Friday. It provides day care to 98 clients per week. The Alzheimer Society of Ireland operates a dementia-specific day care on Saturdays for up to 12 clients. Cobh day care is currently operating Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. It currently provides day care to 63 clients.

As the Deputy has said, Youghal does not currently have a day centre for older people but plans have been proposed to develop this service for the area.

When I realised recently that Youghal did not have a day service, I was more than surprised. It is a big town with a large catchment area and the nearest day service to it is a full service in Dungarvan, County Waterford, and there is a smaller day service in Cappoquin. In the areas which the Deputy has mentioned in west Waterford and all of the way into Youghal, which is a very significant catchment area, I was surprised to learn there is no day centre there. I want to work with the Deputy to ensure that we can put a service in place because, as I said, it is instrumental to support older people to age in their own homes.

A proposal has been drafted and an order of magnitude cost has been produced for the redevelopment of the St Raphael’s healthcare campus. This proposal includes plans for a day centre to be incorporated into the refurbished main building. My concern, however, is that will take too long. I am not over the detail of the actual building but with the winter coming, I would hope that we might be able to work on a temporary solution while this is being put in place. At this stage, it is not possible to determine a timeline in respect of the establishment of a day centre in Youghal until capital funding has been sanctioned for same. At the same time, while there is a major refurbishment going to proceed at that healthcare campus, I do not believe the people of Youghal should have to wait for a day centre. It is so important and even if one was to start off with a three-day service and build up to five days, that would be very important.

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