David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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Question 114: To ask the Minister for Health and Children the progress to date in developing the new health services for older people and people with disabilities as announced in budget 2007; the amount of money allocated to date for these services; the number of new home care packages, home help hours, respite, residential and day care places created since the announcement; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [6182/07]

Seán Power (Kildare South, Fianna Fail)
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I am pleased to inform the Deputy that there has been significant progress in developing services in these important areas. In Budget 2007 the Government allocated an extra €255m for services for older people and an extra €75m for disability services.

The Government's commitment to the development of a comprehensive range of services for older people has been clearly demonstrated by the significantly increased resources made available in recent years. Budget 2007 provides €255m for developments over 2007 and 2008. This includes €82m for the development of home support and community based services, €88m for additional public and private long stay beds and €85m to support considerable improvements in nursing home subvention rates in 2007.

In relation to Disability services, work is underway to provide extra residential, respite and day care places and personal assistance/home support hours. These improvements include 255 new residential places, 85 new respite places and 535 new day service places. There will be 80 new residential places for people with a Physical and Sensory Disability and 250,000 additional hours of personal assistance/home supports. Implementation of these developments have commenced and will continue during 2007.

The HSE has set targets for each of the new service developments and these will be tracked closely throughout the year. Figures for January have not yet been collated by the Health Service Executive, but these will become available as the year progresses.