Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)
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Question 31: To ask the Minister for Health and Children the reason home help hours are being reduced in many parts of the country; if she will initiate an examination of the way home help might assist in reducing the number of people occupying acute beds who could be at home with appropriate support; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [20481/09]

Áine Brady (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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The Home Help Service is a well established and successful component of the overall strategy to enable older people to remain in their own homes and communities for as long as possible. Significant additional funding has been provided to the Health Service Executive in recent years for the expansion of this service. The HSE Service Plan 2009 envisages that the level of service provided nationally in 2008 will be maintained this year, thus equating to:- • funding of around â'¬211m to support this particular service • a projected overall provision of 11.98 million Home Help hours. • around 54,500 persons expected to be in receipt of home help service nationally at any one time.

It is the responsibility of the HSE to operate the Home Help service at local level, in the context of the service nationally, and taking account of overall priorities and resources. This particular service, in addition to the range of other home care support initiatives undertaken by the Executive such as Home Care Packages, can play an important role in relieving pressures on the acute hospitals and long-term residential systems. The Executive regularly reviews the provision of Home-Help in individual cases, having reference to various factors such as changing needs of the person and ensuring that resources are allocated as fairly as possible between existing clients and new applicants. In the circumstances, the question relating to the specific issues raised by the Deputy has been referred to the HSE for direct reply.