Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

1230. To ask the Minister for Health the position regarding home help availability (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [48302/25]

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Improving access to home support is a priority for the Government. The overall budget for home support in 2025 will be circa €838 million. This is the largest allocation ever for home support. This represents an increase of nearly €122 million on Budget 2024 and an increase of over 70% when compared to the 2020 budget of €487m. This increased investment for 2025 means we will be able to provide approximately 24 million home support hours to support people across the country to continue to live in their own home, supporting circa 60,000 people by the year end.

Although the delivery of home support hours has increased nationally, it is important to note that the demand for home support provision has also increased. Demand for this service is anticipated to continue to increase into the future due to population growth and the increasing numbers of people living to over 80 years of age.

As the demand for home support services have increased across the country, it is acknowledged that waiting lists for this service have also increased in some areas. A noted challenge to addressing the current waiting list for this service is related to challenges in recruiting home carer workers in this sector.

The HSE has taken a number of steps to encourage more people into this career, by highlighting and promoting the career opportunities for home support workers in the sector, by developing a career pathway for Health Care Assistant home support workers on the HSE Career Hub platform, which currently has over 51,000 registrants. The HSE Career Hub provides information on the training requirements and benefits associated with working for the HSE as a Home care worker as well as providing updates on job opportunities for suitable candidates.

In the Department of Health work is continuing to explore options to increase the effectiveness of home support and to address the waiting lists observed across the country including rural areas. Among the initiatives that will be explored is the use of assistive technologies to aid home support which maybe particularly beneficial to rural service users.

This work builds on previous work undertaken by the Department as part of the cross-departmental Strategic Workforce Advisory Group (SWAG) which was established in March 2022 which set out to examine the challenges in frontline carer roles in the home support and long-term residential care sectors and contained 16 recommendations to address them. The implementation of these recommendations is underway; with many significant reforms having been implemented.

Under the SWAG, a new and improved HSE Home Support Authorisation Scheme (tender) has been in place since August 2023, for payments to approved private and voluntary providers to deliver home support on behalf of the HSE. This delivers on commitments for sectoral reform such as payment for travel time for home support providers, paying carers the National Living Wage at a minimum, and bringing legacy rates in line with revised rates of funding.

These measures have been taken to support and improve working conditions for staff currently working in the area and to improve the working conditions for future staff working in this sector.

We in Government remain committed to addressing the gaps in home support provision nationally.