Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The details of Finn's case and the other case the Deputy mentioned should be provided to the chief executive of the HSE and the Secretary General of the Department. As I said, the number of hours this year is 10% higher than we budgeted for and it is approximately 9% higher than what was provided in 2023, so there are a lot more hours available. There have been some improvements, including the new HSE authorisation scheme for home support, which has been in place since August, for payments to approved private and voluntary providers to deliver home support on behalf of the HSE. This delivers on commitments for sectoral reform, such as payment for travel time for home support providers, paying carers the national living wage at a minimum, and bringing legacy rates into line with the new revised rates of funding. We think this will help. This is work that has been done under this Government. I know there is a lot more to do but we have recognised some of the points the Deputy has raised and taken steps to address them. However, we need to do more; there is no question about that and we certainly want to do so.

See this speech in context