Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I want to raise the issue of the sheer lack of home help supports, which, I am sure, is the case throughout the State, but I am going to concentrate on County Limerick. A case that stood out to me among the many I come across involves a family living in County Limerick. The father, who was once a fiercely independent man, is now living with advanced dementia. He needs 24-hour care. For mobility reasons, he needs two people just to move around his house. His elderly wife, who is a healthcare assistant, and their grown-up son, are doing everything they can to keep him at home. Currently he is in St Camillus' Hospital for a week or two of respite. Their question is: what happens when he comes home? Who is going to be there to help? They are being offered an hour and a half of home help, once a day, from Monday to Friday. They spend the other 22 and a half hours themselves looking after their husband and father. The lack of support they are receiving from home help is what they worry so much about. Like many families across County Limerick, they feel isolated. They are being encouraged to keep their loved ones at home but are being given no real support to do so. They are told that the HSE promotes home care but the reality is cruel. There is a gap in the policy and practice. In that gap falls the carers who are exhausted, isolated and unheard.

I have another case just down the road from me. The elderly mother of a good friend of mine, who was an active woman, fell, broke her hip and had to go to hospital. She went in for respite after, to ensure she was ready to go home. She now is ready but she has only been offered one half hour slot a day. They are actually calling it a pulse check because by the time the home carer gets there, a half hour later they are gone again. They are not able to actually do anything. He has to leave his elderly mother in the nursing home, even though she could go home, but she does not have enough care at home because he is working and cannot give up his job to sit at home. I would love the Minister for Health to come in and have a discussion on the lack of home care, the barriers and why the HSE cannot seem to employ enough home helps. Is it the section 39 issue? What is the actual issue around this?