Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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654. To ask the Minister for Health his plans to introduce a statutory homecare scheme that will provide for appropriate respite each year and a carer needs assessment for full-time carers; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28246/20]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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Enabling people with care-needs to continue to live independently at home for as long as possible is a long-standing objective of the Government. To advance this, the Government is committed to establishing a new statutory scheme for the financing and regulation of home-support services, which the Department of Health is currently developing.

It is intended that the new scheme will provide equitable and transparent access to high-quality services based on a person's assessed care-needs, and that it will operate consistently across the country. It will build on the HSE's continual enhancement of existing service-provision and on emerging good practice across the current system of health and social care delivery as well as supporting family and unpaid carers.

The national roll-out of interRAI as the single assessment tool will be integral to the new scheme, underpinning the provision of one streamlined process for responding to the evolving care-needs of the individual, from entry-level home-support through to intensive care in a residential setting. The system of regulation will ensure public confidence in the services provided as well as safeguarding service-users.