Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Again, I apologise for the Minister’s absence. I thank Senator Byrne for raising this very important issue.

Improving access to home support is a priority for the Government. Since budget 2021, we have provided an additional €228 million in funding. In 2023, the overall home care budget is €723 million. The HSE national service plan sets a target to provide 23.9 million home support hours and the dementia-specific proportion of new hours will increase from 5% in 2021 to 15% in 2023, valued at €5.2 million.

Delivery of home support hours in communities is increasing in line with enhanced investment. Last year, almost 20.8 million hours of home support were provided across the country. A further 109,240 hours were provided as part of a pilot testing the statutory home support scheme. Preliminary data as of 31 March 2023 outline that 5.2 million hours have been provided in this year to date. This is an increase of approximately 250,000 hours compared with the same period in 2022. In addition, some 56.980 people were receiving home support and 3,524 new applicants were approved for funding and waiting for supports.

Delivering this enhanced capacity requires substantial recruitment and strategic workforce challenges are in evidence in the sector. This is not a funding issue. Recruitment takes time and actions are being taken to attract more carers into the workforce. In order to examine the significant workforce challenges in the home support and nursing home sectors in Ireland, in March 2022 the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, established a cross-departmental strategic workforce advisory group. It was charged with identifying strategic workforce challenges in publicly and privately provided front-line carer roles in home support and nursing homes and with developing recommendations. The group was chaired by the Department of Health, and examined issues such as the recruitment, retention, training, career development, pay and conditions and barriers to employment for front-line carers in these sectors.

The report was published in October 2022, with 16 recommendations across the areas of recruitment, pay and conditions of employment, barriers to employment, training and professional development, sectoral reform and monitoring and implementation. The recommendations are being progressed through a dedicated implementation group. The Department of Health is engaging with recommendation owners in order to define an implementation plan. It is intended to publish a detailed implementation plan containing the steps involved in delivering the recommendations in the coming months. The implementation group will meet quarterly and the Department of Health will publish progress reports against this plan after these meetings take place.

Recommendation 9 has already been implemented. The statutory instrument authorising the issuance of 1,000 employment permits for home care workers was signed on 16 December 2022. To date, 17 organisations have availed of and utilised the process. At the same time, the HSE is also recruiting more people to deliver home support directly. The HSE continues to advertise on an ongoing basis for healthcare support assistants and recruits as many suitable candidates as possible.

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I acknowledge all the work Senator Maria Byrne does in this area. She is right. Local clinics show the huge demand for hours that is not being met. As the Minister pointed out in his response, the money is available. Care is a very challenging recruitment area and he has put in place the implementation process to try to deliver as many home care hours as possible in the community. As the Senator rightly noted, the benefit of keeping people in their own home living independently is huge for society generally.