Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

With regard to the individual case the Deputy mentioned, officials in the Department have contacted the HSE and a response will issue to her in due course. It is being dealt with, therefore.

There is no doubt we do not have enough PA hours or personal assistants to provide them. Nevertheless, as part of the transfer of function, this was one of the issues on which we were able to shine a spotlight. PA hours had been muddied in with home support and we had to untangle that. PA and home support are two completely different things, but some CHOs were using PA hours as home support. The Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, and I have managed to unravel this in the past 12 months and we are continuing to unravel it, and as we do so, people should feel they are getting more support.

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