Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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317. To ask the Minister for Health if additional funding will be provided in 2018 home help, home support and home care packages; if his attention has been drawn to the difficulties caused to persons and families when delays occur in providing such support; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [53946/17]

Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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The demand for the home help service, and for additional supports through the Home Care Package Scheme, continues to grow in parallel with the increasing numbers of older people. Many more of our older people with complex care needs are now being maintained at home, leading to increased demand for additional levels of service, and for services outside of core hours of Monday to Friday.

In Budget 2018 a further €41 million has been made available for older people services, comprising €9m once-off funding in 2017 and €32 million next year, to further strengthen supports for older people, particularly to facilitate speedier discharge from acute hospitals over the winter period. A significant proportion of this additional funding will go towards home care services.

Home care is monitored on an on-going basis, to ensure that activity is maximised relative to individual clients’ assessed care needs and within the overall available resources for home care and having regard to demand throughout the year.

The resources available for home care services while significant, are finite. Accordingly the services, and allocation of resources to individual clients, require prudent management on an on-going basis as demands for services increase. In this context, those clients who are assessed and approved for home care and who are not being provided immediately with a service are risk assessed and placed on a waiting list for a resource as it becomes available.