Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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In order to examine the significant workforce challenges in the home-support and nursing home sectors in Ireland, Minister Butler established the cross-departmental Strategic Workforce Advisory Group in March 2022. This Group progressed a structured programme of consultative engagements with key sectoral stakeholders, including ICTU and the HCCI, to further explore and define the issues, and identify approaches to respond to the strategic workforce challenges.

The Advisory Group report was published in October 2022 with 16 recommendations across the areas of recruitment, pay and conditions of employment, barriers to employment, training and professional development, sectoral reform, and monitoring and implementation.

Minister Butler has endorsed the Advisory Group’s recommendations. Implementation of the recommendations will be overseen by a cross departmental Implementation Group, chaired by the Department of Health. The Department is engaging with recommendation owners to define an implementation plan.

A detailed implementation plan will be published containing steps involved in delivering the recommendations in the coming months. It is envisaged that the implementation group will meet quarterly and publish progress reports thereafter.

The first recommendation No. 9 was implemented in December 2022 with the announcement of the authorisation of 1,000 employment permits for non-EU/EEA home support workers. This promises to significantly reduce the current shortage of care workers in Ireland.

Progression of the specific recommendations concerning living wage and travel time are linked to the outcome of the Tender 2023 process. The process of developing the new tender is at an advanced stage. Officials in the Department of Health are engaging at a senior level with the HSE and the HSE has ongoing engagements with home care providers to progress the new tender. No final decisions on the tender content have been reached. As a strict communication protocol applies in all phases of the procurement process, therefore a meeting with a particular organisation on Tender 2023 cannot be facilitated at this time.