Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Yesterday, representatives from Alone were before the health committee speaking about the home care sector. One of the contributors said that a statutory home care scheme was first mentioned in this House in 1968. I looked back and that is correct. A scheme like this was first mooted back in the late 1960s. We have been talking about this for a considerable amount of time and it still has not been done. It was promised in the programme for Government but has still not been put in place. We will all agree that home care is extremely important. I was a home care worker for a long time prior to this and I know how important the work is in terms of keeping people out of acute medical situations and keeping them at home. People do want to stay at home but they have to get the service and the hours that make it sustainable. There is a lot of demand for home care and it will increase over the next 20 years because people are living longer. That is a good thing. However, if the services are not there it becomes arbitrary, and that is not a good thing at all.

Like nursing homes, home care providers are largely run for profit. The Minister of State has not acknowledged that once this is the case, there is an imbalance. I am not saying private care providers are all bad. That is not the case. A model of profit before people is all wrong. That is not being ideological about it. Home care and nursing care should be run by the State because that is better and more economical. It is just better generally. We have to look at that imbalance. Home care should not be about supply, although there are supply issues. It should be about demand. It should be enshrined in legislation that anybody who needs home care will get it in time. If they get a good intervention in time, the outcomes are great, not only for that person and the family but for society as a whole. That needs to be enshrined in legislation. If it is not statutory, it becomes arbitrary and people will lose out, which is not fair.

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