Home care support provision not sufficient to meet demand in Dublin Mid-West with 50% increase in people waiting.
John Curran T.D. has criticised the lack of appetite on the part of the Government to provide adequate home support services in Dublin Mid-West. Deputy Curran was commenting as Minister of State for Older People, Jim Daly, confirmed to him that the Government will not meet the demand for home care support in 2019. Deputy Curran raised the issue in Dáil Éireann and said, “I am very disappointed with what I can only describe as an uninspiring and lacklustre response from the Minister of State. In 2018 many people across Ireland had significant difficulties in accessing home support services. What I learned from the Minister is that there will be little or no change to that in 2019.
“In CHO 7 which covers Dublin Mid-West, in March 2018 there were 724 people waiting for home care support. Less than five months later that figure had risen to over 1,100. This is an increase of over 50%. That is totally out of kilter with figures for each of the other CHO areas and I have asked the Minister to investigate what he acknowledged was an ‘unusual disparity’. “The Minister categorically acknowledged that the demand for home help will not be met this year. He must examine other avenues and consider how things are done. In a recent Parliamentary response I was told that the number of direct employees of the HSE providing this type of service is reducing, which means the dependency on agencies to provide the care is increasing.
“Surely the best value for money is in having direct employees and not agency services which have over the past year increased their rates by up to 20%. Tax payers need to know they are getting the best value for their money. We must remember that in the next 30 years, the number of people in Ireland aged over 65 will double and the number aged over 85 will almost quadruple. If we do not put in place the adequate resources now, it will be our elderly and most vulnerable who will suffer”, concluded Deputy Curran.
