Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 8 December 2022
86. Deputy Alan Dillon asked the Minister for Health the steps that are being taken to increase home help hours for the elderly; the steps that are being taken to increase the number of homecare workers; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [61345/22]
Amharc ar fhreagraAddressing 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 work towards their implementation has commenced. At a press conference on 30th November, Minister English and I announced that 1,000 General Employment Permits will be made available for home-support workers from January 2023. As recommended by the Advisory Group, these permits will be for full-time positions with a minimum salary of €27,000 per year and a stipulated minimum continuous shift-length of four hours per working day.
All of the recommendations will be monitored on an on-going basis to ensure that they are enacted in full and in a timely manner.
