Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State. I very much appreciate him dealing with this matter, which relates to the increase in demand there will be for home care now that we have an increasing number of older people in the country. That number will continue to increase at a dramatic pace in the next ten to 12 years. The figures, as I understand them, indicate that 637,000 citizens are over 65. Within 12 years, that will be 1 million. While there has been an increase in the number of people who are being provided with home care, we also need to plan for the long term. In particular, we need to plan to upskill people who will be able and available to provide home care.

The other challenge we face relates to the fact that because of the increase in employment, people will not be attracted into providing home care because there are more permanent jobs available. We will have to look, therefore, at what kind of mechanism we should put in place to ensure that people have job security. That is becoming more of a challenge for those who want to provide home care. It is in that context that I am raising this issue. I would like to know what action the Government and the Department of Health are taking to deal with this issue?