Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

With regard to reform, the home help service, which comes under the remit of the Department of Health, is a vital concern for carers. Home helps are, as Professor Crown will know, very important for older patients and people recovering from surgery at home. The provision of a home care or home help service is vital in helping people to sustain independent living and speed recovery after leaving hospital. I am happy to say the Minister for Health has given me an assurance that the funding for home helps has been fully provided for in his Estimate for 2013.

To return to what Senator Moloney and others said yesterday and today, what is important is that, through co-operation between the Department of Health and the Department of Social Protection, we map out for Ireland what exactly respite provision should involve and how we can improve on it. This is more important for many carers than the respite care grant, although the grant is extremely well received. We have chosen in the budget to put extra funding into 10,000 work activation places and 6,000 child care places in order to provide a base for reform. The key reform required to get the country back on its feet is to get people back to work.

Last night, Senator Ó Clochartaigh was desperately critical of JobBridge and saw no merit in it.