Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The recruitment embargo is having a profound effect across the health service from acute hospitals to community hospitals and down to home care packages. Anybody who is a public representative will know the impact this has had, having being obliged to engage with the HSE and to listen to the challenges faced by families is having on them. This is crazy stuff. We must remember that providing funding to persons to be cared for in their own homes saves the State a huge amount of money. To have this delivered by HSE personnel, rather than hand it out to the private sector again saves a huge amount of money yet, unbelievably, this Government continues on the path it has been on.

It announced in the budget 1 million additional home help hours for next year. It was a great piece of spin and sounded as if it would solve the problem but Sinn Féin now has a response from the Minister to a parliamentary question from our health spokesperson, Deputy O'Reilly, confirming that 2.5 million home help hours would be needed next year to deal with the backlog. The Government has provided only half the number of hours necessary to deal with the backlog. What does that mean in real terms? It means that in a place like Donegal, hundreds of elderly people who need this care in their homes, and for their families to have some respite and support, will not get it. It is outrageous. Clarification should be given by the Minister for Health to this House as to the reason this has not been addressed. I have spoken in confidence to people who work in this service in the HSE at all levels. They have told me the reason they are falling behind so badly now, and the reason they are at the front line having to answer questions from the families and deal with the tough conversations, is because of the Government's recruitment embargo. This is madness. It will cost the State more money in the long run. I ask the Leader to again make representations to the Minister for Health outlining the stupidity of this policy, the impact it is having in places like Donegal and across this State and to have it reversed urgently to end the recruitment embargo as it affects home help workers and assistants. It needs to be done as soon as possible.