Results 1,301-1,320 of 7,823 for speaker:Jim Daly

Home Help Service Provision: Statements (12 Jun 2019)

Jim Daly: There is no cut to home help hours. Nobody who is currently in receipt of home help hours is having them cut or removed. That is a fact. As regards the allocation of new hours, they are coming into the system all the time. However, the demand for them far exceeds the level of supply. Letters such as that referred to by the Deputy issue periodically. Of the 600 delayed discharges, 26...

Home Help Service Provision: Statements (12 Jun 2019)

Jim Daly: I could not agree with any contribution from any Deputy more than I agree with that last contribution. That is, of course, why we want the delivery of a statutory home care scheme underpinned by statute and guaranteed. That is why I have undertaken that project which began two years ago. As I said previously, it took nine years to bring the fair deal scheme from concept to reality. I have...

Home Help Service Provision: Statements (12 Jun 2019)

Jim Daly: The Deputy has rightly pointed out that much of that is not in my area. We have obviously identified that, in our ambition to have a statutory scheme, the only way that one can attract the quality and supply of staff required is to ensure that there are good conditions attaching to it, good standards and protections for staff. That has all been readily identified in our approach to...

Home Help Service Provision: Statements (12 Jun 2019)

Jim Daly: I am happy to accept the Deputy's request that I put that forward at budget time. I want to hit one nail on the head. There can be no comparison, as has been made, between the €240 per week for home care, €1,200 per week for a nursing home and €7,000 per week for an acute hospital bed. It does not make any sense and I am surprised at some of the Deputies who have...

Home Help Service Provision: Statements (12 Jun 2019)

Jim Daly: The decision on the operation of the scheme was made by the HSE. The HSE has, since its inception, always been subject to a budget cap and had to maintain delivery of its services within the budget available. There has been no new decision made or any change of policy. I have not instructed or been involved in any change whatsoever. I allocated the HSE funding for 18 million hours to be...

Home Help Service Provision: Statements (12 Jun 2019)

Jim Daly: I was not aware of the Deputy's past connection with this industry. I thank him for sharing that and I appreciate his insights. We have commissioned a major review of the current home help service with a view to nailing down and identifying flaws in areas such as operations, funding, delivery of service and geographical disparity so as to inform the new scheme. Much of that information...

Home Help Service Provision: Statements (12 Jun 2019)

Jim Daly: There were more people waiting for a home help this time last year than this year. That is neither here nor there, but when people talk about-----

Home Help Service Provision: Statements (12 Jun 2019)

Jim Daly: Because I have the figures.

Home Help Service Provision: Statements (12 Jun 2019)

Jim Daly: I will. I am quite happy to do so. I would prefer if I could answer one question at a time without interruption. The figure is just a fact concerning the crisis about which everybody is talking. I am not proud that there are 6,000 people unhappy and waiting, but there were more waiting this time last year. However, that is not the point I wanted to make. To answer the Deputy's...

Home Help Service Provision: Statements (12 Jun 2019)

Jim Daly: First, there is no freeze in the allocation of home help hours. In my CHO which covers counties Cork and Kerry 1,200 additional hours are being allocated month on month. I hear this confirmed by every other CHO leader or manager. My understanding from the HSE nationally is that there is absolutely no freeze. I do not know how many times I can say it. A number of Members have said there...

Home Help Service Provision: Statements (12 Jun 2019)

Jim Daly: The Deputy will have his chance. He can roar away at me all he likes. Why is he roaring?

Home Help Service Provision: Statements (12 Jun 2019)

Jim Daly: If the House does not want to hear what I have to say, I will sit down and Members can talk away.

Home Help Service Provision: Statements (12 Jun 2019)

Jim Daly: Deputies either want to hear or they do not. I have as much a vested interest in getting this right as anybody else in this House and I have as much desire to do so. I am a practising politician on the ground who has the same experience as everybody else in this Chamber. I am here in a collaborative spirit. I will give the Deputy what information I can and I am open to suggestions and...

Home Help Service Provision: Statements (12 Jun 2019)

Jim Daly: I wish to be fair to the Deputy. I did not answer her question.

Home Help Service Provision: Statements (12 Jun 2019)

Jim Daly: On Deputy O'Reilly's question about the allocation of hours,140,000 additional hours have been allocated in the first three or four months of the year. There is a target of 800,000 additional hours for the entire year. It is up to the HSE to decide how to allocate and decide where it will prioritise allocation. Obviously, there would be the optimum allocation for the winter months. The...

Home Help Service Provision: Statements (12 Jun 2019)

Jim Daly: On the first question, the Deputy said 242,000 hours were allocated in the first few months of the year. There are 800,000 for the entire year. If there were to be a freeze until November, as everybody is trying to suggest, there would be an unmerciful drive to try to allocate 500,000 home help hours between November and December. What the Deputy is saying does not make any sense. There...

Home Help Service Provision: Statements (12 Jun 2019)

Jim Daly: I am sorry, but I would prefer if the Deputy did not put words in my mouth.

Home Help Service Provision: Statements (12 Jun 2019)

Jim Daly: I am happy to do so, but I do not want to be misquoted.

Home Help Service Provision: Statements (12 Jun 2019)

Jim Daly: The opposite argument is made about residential care. Some 80% of those in residential care are minded in private nursing homes. They argue that they achieve far better value for money than the HSE. There will be a report making its way to my desk on that very issue very shortly. One could argue the toss all day on the issue of public versus private, but the HSE will use private staff...

Home Help Service Provision: Statements (12 Jun 2019)

Jim Daly: The rostering arrangements pose a challenge to the HSE. It does not have the IT systems it should have in an ideal world to manage that aspect of it. Putting it in now while we are devising a new scheme will not happen and so they will need to make do with what they have for the remainder of this scheme, which is a year and a half or two years. I want to meet the CHO leaders to hear how...