Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wish to comment on computerisation, especially regarding home supports. There is currently a split in that the 22 million home support hours last year were delivered between private, public and voluntary services. Approximately 55% of all the home support last year was delivered by private sector services, which all use IT to deliver their supports. Unfortunately, the HSE is lagging but we are trying to address this.

I also want to talk to the Deputy about a pilot project we are now running in CHO 5 with HaloCare. We are running it with more than 200 recipients of homecare. We are trying to support these people, especially those with dementia, to live in their own homes for as long as possible. For example, where a person with dementia opens the door on hearing the doorbell but does not know the person who rang it, the call is answered by a call centre. We will never replace one-on-one support but there is certainly no reason we cannot enhance what we are doing to support people to live and age well at home.

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