Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 11 October 2023
238. Deputy Patricia Ryan asked the Minister for Health the urgent measures he will take to address the serious matter of home care hours and full homecare packages being granted, but not being fulfilled, due to no staff being available to resulting in a person (details supplied); when the care package will be fulfilled; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [44470/23]
View answerAddressing the shortage of care workers in Ireland is an urgent priority for the Government. To this end, the cross-departmental Strategic Workforce Advisory Group was established in March 2022 to examine, and formulate recommendations to address, the challenges in frontline carer roles in the home support and long term residential care sectors.
The Group was chaired by the Department of Health and comprised representatives from seven government departments (Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth; Enterprise, Trade and Employment; Health; Higher and Further Education, Research, Innovation and Science; Justice; Public Expenditure and Reform; and Social Protection), the HSE, HIQA and SOLAS.
The Report was published on 15 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 recruitment, pay and conditions of employment, barriers to employment, training and professional development and sectoral reform.
Implementation of the 16 recommendations is being 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 meeting of the group took place on 29 June. The implementation group will meet quarterly and publish progress reports thereafter.
Recommendation 9 has been implemented. The Statutory instrument authorising the issuance of 1,000 employment permits for homecare workers was signed on 16 December 2022. Work is underway on all recommendations, with a further four at an advanced stage.
As this is an operational matter, I have asked the Health Service Executive to respond to the deputy directly, as soon as possible.
