Carol Nolan (Offaly, Independent)
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373. To ask the Minister for Health his plans to ring-fence an allocation of home care package funding for dementia care in the home; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [41890/18]

Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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The National Dementia Strategy was launched in December 2014 to meet the challenges faced by the 55,000 people living with dementia in Ireland and to provide services to meet growing demand in future years. The Strategy contains 35 priority and additional actions and its implementation is being led by the National Dementia Office in the HSE. The office has made substantial progress towards developing evidence-based care pathways for people with dementia and progress to date, as well as future plans, is recorded in the mid-term review of the Strategy's implementation, which was published in May this year. The Strategy emphasises the need for a "whole community response" to dementia, as the majority of people with dementia live in their own communities and wish to avail of services in their local area.

In 2014 the HSE introduced Dementia-Specific Intensive Homecare Packages (IHCPs) to test the feasibility of providing a high level of support to people with dementia with complex needs to facilitate them to remain living at home. These were initially co-funded by the HSE and the Atlantic Philanthropies and now fully funded by the HSE, which has committed to continue to provide approximately 120 packages at any one time beyond 2018. As of the end of July this year, 361 people with dementia had benefitted from an IHCP. In addition to the IHCPs, people with dementia are also able to avail of standard home care services on the basis of need and within the resources available.

The approach from the Government on Budget day is to announce the significant investment in health services for 2019 as a whole. On foot of this, the Department of Health and the HSE will commence a process of developing and agreeing the HSE National Service Plan 2019, which will set out, in detail, the type and quantum of services to be delivered in 2019.