Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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In order to examine the significant workforce challenges in the home support and nursing home sectors in Ireland, I established the cross-departmental Strategic Workforce Advisory Group in March 2022. Working closely with key stakeholders, the Advisory Group made 16 recommendations to address the challenges in frontline carer roles in the home support and long-term residential care sectors.

Their 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.

I have 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.

Implementation has commenced. The first recommendation 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.

The issued raised by the Deputy is an operational one and I have asked the Health Service Executive to respond to the deputy directly, as soon as possible.