Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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532. To ask the Minister for Health his plans to allocate additional resources for home support for the remainder of 2017; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39857/17]

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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533. To ask the Minister for Health his plans to allocate additional resources to community health area 1 for home support for 2017; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39858/17]

Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 532 and 533 together.

The overall funding for Services for Older People is €765 million in 2017 with €367m for direct funding of Home Help and Home Care Packages. A further €9m supported by HSE and Atlantic Philanthropies will provide Intensive Home Care Packages (IHCPs) for people with more complex needs. The HSE’s National Service Plan for 2017 provides for a target of 10.57 million Home Help Hours to support about 49,000 people, 16,750Home Care Packagesand190Intensive Home Care Packages for clients with complex needs including 60 clients with dementia supported with co-funding from Atlantic Philanthropies under the Irish National Dementia Strategy. This represents a significant increase on home care in comparison to last year’s Service Plan, which had an original target of 10.4 million hours home help and 15,450 Home Care Packages.

Despite this significant level of service provision, the demand for Home Care continues to grow. It is important to note that the allocation of funding for home care across the system, though significant, is finite and services must therefore be delivered within the funding available. The level of activity and associated costs must be managed in each of the nine Community Healthcare Organisations, including CHO 1 in a way that ensures that those with the greatest needs are supported and that the overall expenditure on home care services by the HSE does not exceed the available funding.

The Programme for Government commits to increasing funding for Home Care Packages and Home Help every year. The planning and management of future health expenditure will be considered as part of the annual estimates and budgetary process which seeks to balance available funding across all of the various service areas to achieve the best possible outcomes for the greatest number of service users and prioritise areas of greatest need.