Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 8 November 2022
1074. Deputy Róisín Shortall asked the Minister for Health if he intends to implement all 16 recommendations from the report of the strategic workforce advisory group on home carers and nursing home health care assistants; the timeline that he is working towards; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [54801/22]
View answerAddressing the shortage of care-workers in Ireland is an urgent priority for the Government. To this end, I established the cross-departmental Strategic Workforce Advisory Group in March 2022 to examine, and formulate recommendations to address, the challenges in front-line carer roles in the home-support and long-term residential care sectors. Working closely with key stakeholders, the Group examined the recruitment, retention, training, career-development, and pay and conditions of care-workers.
The Report of the Strategic Workforce Advisory Group on Home Carers and Nursing Home Healthcare Assistants was published on 15th October 2022. Providing an overview of the work of the Group and its key findings, the report presents a suite of 16 recommendations spanning the areas of areas of recruitment, pay and conditions of employment, barriers to employment, training and professional development, sectoral reform, and monitoring and implementation.
I strongly endorse all of the Group's recommendations and I can confirm that their implementation has commenced. I will be closely monitoring this implementation on an on-going basis to ensure that the recommendations are enacted in full in line with assigned timelines.
