Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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1278. To ask the Minister for Health the steps he plans to take to address the crisis in recruitment in the homecare sector in view of the savings and other advantages to homecare as opposed to institutional care in many cases and also the health benefits as evidenced during the Covid-19 pandemic; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42318/21]

Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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The Programme for Government (2020) commits to the introduction of “a statutory scheme to support people to live in their own homes, which will provide equitable access to high-quality, regulated home care.” In this regard, the Department is in the process of developing a statutory scheme for the financing and regulation of home-support. 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.

As part of this work, the Department is examining the potential demand and cost of introducing such a scheme. Following this, work will be undertaken to examine the associated workforce requirements for the introduction of such a scheme and my Department will engage with other sectors as required in this regard.