Results 4,501-4,520 of 12,040 for speaker:Mary Butler

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Disability Matters: Disability, Mental Health and Ageing: Engagement with Minister of State at the Department of Health (17 Nov 2022)

Mary Butler: The Deputy raised many valid points. Home care is one facet of supporting people to live at home. Some people receive seven hours a week and others 14 hours per week. The various CHOs are probably challenged in trying to spread the hours as much as they possibly can so that as many people as possible get the supports. We also have almost 300 day-care centres in Ireland. These are another...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Disability Matters: Disability, Mental Health and Ageing: Engagement with Minister of State at the Department of Health (17 Nov 2022)

Mary Butler: There is always a lead-in time. I will give an example. The committee will be aware that one of the items of legislation that I passed was the fair deal for farmers, which addressed an anomaly. Even though the legislation was signed in August, there was a provision whereby it could only be enacted after 90 days, so a lead-in time is always to be expected. It is important that we state...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Disability Matters: Disability, Mental Health and Ageing: Engagement with Minister of State at the Department of Health (17 Nov 2022)

Mary Butler: It is important that there be a specified date towards which everyone works.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Disability Matters: Disability, Mental Health and Ageing: Engagement with Minister of State at the Department of Health (17 Nov 2022)

Mary Butler: Everyone will have heard that we have a fantastic new forensic mental health hospital in Portrane in north County Dublin. It involved a €200 million investment and it is the best forensic mental health hospital in all of Europe. I have visited it a couple of times. It is a job well done. It took a while to get it opened, but all of the patients from the Central Mental Hospital were...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Disability Matters: Disability, Mental Health and Ageing: Engagement with Minister of State at the Department of Health (17 Nov 2022)

Mary Butler: No, the living wage.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Disability Matters: Disability, Mental Health and Ageing: Engagement with Minister of State at the Department of Health (17 Nov 2022)

Mary Butler: That has been welcomed across all the sectors that they receive a minimum of the living wage and that they also receive mileage when they are delivering home support. In north county Dublin, for example, I met staff in an organisation in CHO 9 a few months ago. They provided 900,000 home care hours last year. There was no waiting list and they are part of a voluntary organisation. With a...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Disability Matters: Disability, Mental Health and Ageing: Engagement with Minister of State at the Department of Health (17 Nov 2022)

Mary Butler: When I took up the post there were 9,000 people waiting on home care. We got the number down to 4,000.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Disability Matters: Disability, Mental Health and Ageing: Engagement with Minister of State at the Department of Health (17 Nov 2022)

Mary Butler: No, through both. At the end of the day, a person who needs home care does not care who is providing that once the home carer comes in the door. Previously, it was a 50:50 split. There was 50% of home care provided by the HSE and 50% by private companies and voluntary groups such as the organisation I mentioned. I received additional funding of €150 million in my first budget to...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Disability Matters: Disability, Mental Health and Ageing: Engagement with Minister of State at the Department of Health (17 Nov 2022)

Mary Butler: It is 60% private. It went from 50:50 to 60:40 but one of the recommendations in the strategic workforce advisory group is that we would move back again, as best we can, to a 50:50 split. We have asked all nine CHOs to put in place a recurring recruitment campaign for health care workers. The point I will come back to as well is that some people who were health care workers no longer want...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Disability Matters: Disability, Mental Health and Ageing: Engagement with Minister of State at the Department of Health (17 Nov 2022)

Mary Butler: That is my aim, yes.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Disability Matters: Disability, Mental Health and Ageing: Engagement with Minister of State at the Department of Health (17 Nov 2022)

Mary Butler: We are putting in place a home support office in Tullamore - one national home support office, which will be the hub. There will be nine spokes that will go out to the nine CHOs.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Disability Matters: Disability, Mental Health and Ageing: Engagement with Minister of State at the Department of Health (17 Nov 2022)

Mary Butler: HIQA is the regulator. We will continue to work very closely with HIQA. Mr. Brunell will respond to the other question

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Disability Matters: Disability, Mental Health and Ageing: Engagement with Minister of State at the Department of Health (17 Nov 2022)

Mary Butler: Dementia was one of the areas that I prioritised when I took up the position as Minister of State. We had eight dementia advisers and we now have 28. We also have 31 memory clinics throughout the country. As I said earlier, 15% of all home care hours are dementia-specific. We also have dementia home care packages. We have made a lot of progress in what we have done for dementia. Prior...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Disability Matters: Disability, Mental Health and Ageing: Engagement with Minister of State at the Department of Health (17 Nov 2022)

Mary Butler: Is that in relation to education for the young person or is it in relation to availing of services?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Disability Matters: Disability, Mental Health and Ageing: Engagement with Minister of State at the Department of Health (17 Nov 2022)

Mary Butler: That is unusual because the majority of children are provided with transport , certainly in my area. However, there seems to be an anomaly there.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Disability Matters: Disability, Mental Health and Ageing: Engagement with Minister of State at the Department of Health (17 Nov 2022)

Mary Butler: I will come back on that. I need to look it up on my phone.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Disability Matters: Disability, Mental Health and Ageing: Engagement with Minister of State at the Department of Health (17 Nov 2022)

Mary Butler: I thank the Senator and the committee for their continued interest. This is one of the stand-out new committees. It is a really important one we did not have previously. I welcome the opportunity to put a lot of what we are trying to achieve, and the work we are doing into the public domain. It is very helpful. Going back to ADHD, the current situation is that this was launched in 2021....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Disability Matters: Disability, Mental Health and Ageing: Engagement with Minister of State at the Department of Health (17 Nov 2022)

Mary Butler: I thank Deputy Hourigan for her questions. The ICPOP team is part of the enhanced community care, ECC, programme so they technically come under the Minister for Health's funding stream. We have 22 of the 30 teams and dedicated funding in place. The challenge is not funding but, again, workforce planning. Some 60% of posts have been recruited.