Marie Louise O'Donnell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is very serious. We are talking about retirement villages, nursing homes, care packages and care in the home, but we are not talking about the quality and quantity of those who do the caring. We are living in Utopia in building rockets with nowhere to land them. My point is carers are not deemed to have "critical" skills such that they cannot apply to come here from non-EU countries. This is also problematic when it comes to retaining healthcare assistants. Who is going to staff all of the new nursing and retirement homes? Are we engaged in workforce planning, given the ageing demographic? I would like the Minister to come to the House to discuss the critical skills list. It has been expanded to include agrifood workers, that is, those in the meat industry who work in meat and boning halls, but it has not been expanded to include the carers of elderly persons in nursing homes. Their skills are not considered to be "critical", which means that it is very difficult for non-EU health care assistants to come and stay here. I ask the Minister to come to the House to outline his plans for retirement villages and nursing homes, given the ageing demographic, and the workforce planning that has been engaged in to date, with particular reference to the skills of healthcare assistants.We all forget about them. They do the serious and the real work every day in these organisations. They are paid very little and their work does not come under the heading of critical skills ability. Minding an elderly person all day, every day is a role demanding critical skills. They might not be medical or nursing skills as it is a different kind of care. Perhaps the Minister will come in and outline his plans for that.