Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have just come from the launch of part of Sinn Féin's pre-budget submission on tackling the health crisis which lays particular emphasis on the need to invest in home help and home care packages. The inhumane cuts to the numbers of home help hours and home care packages initiated by Fianna Fáil and continued by Fine Gael have left the service in crisis which is not just manifest in rural Ireland but also in urban Ireland. The nonsensical Fianna Fáil policy of allocating just 30 or 45 minutes to households and elderly vulnerable persons and the drive towards privatisation mean that there are swathes of rural Ireland without a service. In some cases, home help packages are being allocated, but the necessary personnel are not available to provide the service because it has been privatised. This is an essential service, as acknowledged in many Government policy documents. Home care packages need to be delivered in the home and the community. In the forthcoming budget Sinn Féin proposes an increase in the number of home help hours by 20%, which would result in an additional 2.1 million home help hours being made available. We are keenly aware that families have a variety of needs and that the provision of home care packages is essential. In that context, we propose an increase in the number of home care packages by 15%, or 2,485.

These measures would constitute an investment of €72.65 million in older people and would go some way toward delivering for them and their families and ensuring they can live with the dignity and respect they have earned and deserve. Not only are the measures the fair and decent thing to do, they also make sense financially as well as having the knock-on effect of alleviating pressure on acute hospital services through beds being freed up and thus the reduction of the trolley and waiting list crises. Older people deserve such measures and Sinn Féin is on their side and is making it a priority for budget 2018. I would like the Minister to come to the House to deal with some of the issues in relation to home care, home care packages, these not being a Government priority and there not being the personnel in many parishes in rural Ireland to deliver services to ensure elderly and vulnerable persons have the choice of living in their own homes. It makes social and economic sense to deal with these issues.