Paula Butterly (Louth, Fine Gael)
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1232. To ask the Minister for Health if she will provide an update on the development of the fair deal scheme to be extended to allow people to stay in their homes rather than be cared for in nursing homes. [48319/25]

Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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The Programme for Government commits to "Design a Statutory Homecare Scheme to allow people to stay in their own home for as long as possible." Enabling older people with care needs to continue to live independently at home for as long as possible, is a priority for the Government and as such it has committed to establishing a new Statutory Scheme for regulation of home support services, which the Department of Health is currently developing.

A necessary pre-condition for any statutory scheme for home support is to ensure that the sector is regulated. The Department of Health is therefore currently developing a regulatory framework for home support providers with the aim of ensuring that all service users are provided with high quality care. This framework applies to all services delivering home support to adults, including those services who operate in the disability sector.

The framework comprises of primary legislation for the licensing of home support providers, regulations for home support which will set out the minimum requirements that a provider must meet to obtain a licence, and HIQA national standards. Substantial progress has been made on all of these elements.

The Health (Amendment) (Home Support Providers) Bill will regulate home support services in Ireland by establishing a licensing system for providers of home support services, under which it will be an offence to operate a service without a license. Under the legislation, HIQA’s Chief Inspector for Social Services will be the licensing authority with responsibility for monitoring and assessing compliance with regulations and HIQA national standards.

The objective of the proposed licensing system is to improve the safety and quality of home support services by ensuring that registered home support providers do not operate below the standard set by Ministerial regulations. The development of a regulatory framework for providers of home support services will ensure that all service users are provided with high quality care with the same minimum standards wherever and however it is provided.

The legislation to establish a licensing framework for home support providers is at an advanced stage. In May 2024, the General Scheme was approved by Government and has been published on the Department of Health website along with the Regulatory Impact Analysis. The Joint Committee for Health has concluded its pre-legislative scrutiny of the general scheme and issued its report to the Department of Health in October 2024. The General Scheme has now been referred to the Office of Parliamentary Counsel for final drafting, with a view to presenting the Bill to Cabinet during the autumn legislative session.

Final amendments have been made to draft regulations for home support providers following public consultation and engagements with stakeholder groups. The Department of Health has been working closely with HIQA, which is in the process of finalising draft quality standards for submission to the Minister for Health, following public consultation in December 2024.

How home support will be funded in the future will be an essential factor of the new Statutory Scheme. Currently, home support services are fully exchequer funded for those who have been assessed by the HSE as requiring the service. The Department is researching different funding models which will form an important part of the evidence base for the development of a sustainable funding model for home care services and has commissioned several reports from the ESRI and the European Observatory on Health Systems.

This research is being examined, as it forms an important part of the evidence base for the development of a sustainable funding model for home support services in the context of our ageing population. The Capacity Review which is being undertaken by the ESRI and was published in June 2025. Work on regional projections is underway. This will help to inform the levels of service provision required into the future (out to 2040) and will be a key piece of research for this workstream.

It is important to note that no decision on future funding options has been made, and further research is underway.