Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein)

I raise the issue of home care hours for older and disabled people. I am regularly contacted by families of older and disabled people regarding home care hours. Where hours are sanctioned, carers are possibly not turning up for their shifts, or when two carers are required, only one turns up. This happens regularly at weekends. Where needs have changed and a person requires more care, the HSE will say the hours are sanctioned but that it cannot identify carers to provide the slot.

On the other hand, I hear from carers whose client may possibly be in hospital and whose hours are banked by the HSE. Therefore, the carers have been paid but are not filling those hours and they are not being allocated to others. Even as a temporary measure, it would make such a difference to the family carers looking after older or disabled people. Another carer told me one of her clients had passed away. She worked for a HSE-contracted agency, but waited weeks to be assigned to new people and was down money as a result. She was there, willing, able and trained up to provide care, people require it, yet she was not assigned to provide that care. There seems to be an issue that those with the most need are often not prioritised over those with less need. That is something that needs to be looked at as well.

I would love to see a debate on this issue looking at the whole system because something in it seems to be broken where hours are available but are not being assigned. We also need to look at ways of trying to employ more carers and making sure that we can hold on to them for long time. Pay and conditions are key issues in this regard.