Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry South, Independent)
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To ask the Minister for Health his views on home help (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43979/12]

James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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The HSE has announced a reduction in the provision of home help hours as one of a number of measures required to address the current budget deficit, subject to home help services continuing to be available to those assessed as requiring them.

Contracts for home helps employed by external (non-HSE) providers are a matter for the individual provider. However, where external providers have service level agreements in place with the HSE it is a requirement of those agreements that the service provider would have appropriate contractual arrangements in place with their employees. A national contract of indefinite duration for Home Helps employed by the Health Service Executive (HSE) was agreed in 2006 with the relevant trade union as part of the work of the High Level Group established to review Home Help Services. The contracts of home help workers employed by the HSE have been the subject of further deliberation, including Labour Court consideration in the interim years.

On 29 June 2012 following a related hearing, the Labour Court recommended that the HSE and SIPTU should engage in relation to matters concerning home help contracts. The HSE has engaged with SIPTU concerning the recommendation and its deliberations are on-going. As part of this process it is currently undertaking an information gathering exercise to ascertain the up to date position regarding the nature of the contracts held by home helps and the hours worked under such contracts.