Patricia Ryan (Kildare South, Sinn Fein)
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246. To ask the Minister for Health with regard to the healthy age friendly homes programme, the amount of resources under the programme that have been allocated; and the number of older people that have benefitted from the scheme. [25475/23]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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Healthy Age Friendly Homes has been operating in 9 pilot local authorities since June 2021, and will be expanding nationally later this year to all local authorities. The programme received €5.2m in funding as part of Budget 2023 to facilitate this rollout, which will include the recruitment of a national manager, 6 regional managers, 44 local coordinators, and 15 administrative staff. Recruitment is currently underway and is expected to completed this summer to coincide with a formal launch. The programme will also carry out a 3-year evaluation with an academic partner, which will be the subject of a competitive tender process later this year.

Since the programme launched in 2021, local coordinators have carried out 3,434 home visits to older people and provided 6,036 supports in the categories of health, housing, community, and assistive technologies. Examples of the kinds of supports older adults can avail of are listed below, but are non-exhaustive. The local coordinator works directly with the older adults in their homes to identify their needs and what supports can be put in place to help them live healthier and more independently in their homes and communities for as long as possible.

• Health: facilitating access to a GP, public health nurse, home help, occupational therapist, physiotherapist, primary care centre, and meals on wheels.
• Housing: information and advice on applying for housing adaptation grants, mobility aid grants, housing aid for older people, the SEAI home energy efficiency grants and retrofits, as well as advice on home security (door locks, alarms, panic buttons, etc.).
• Community: links to befriending services, access to library services or local community groups, further education, and physical activity advice.
• Assistive Technologies: devices available to participants include falls detectors, bogus caller buttons, wearable devices/pendants, and carbon monoxide detectors.