I have raised the chaos within the health service with the Taoiseach many times. This chaos has human consequences. This afternoon I want to put one name and one face to some of these consequences. Earlier I informed the Taoiseach's office that I wanted to raise with him the case of Olivia Harte. Olivia is 41 years of age and from County Leitrim. She is the mother of two young children, Colette and Ronan. She suffers from an aggressive form of Parkinson's disease. Olivia is currently in the intensive care unit of Cavan General Hospital. She has been there for the past seven months. Olivia has been on delayed discharge since January and remains in hospital six months after she was ready to go home. Olivia is on a ventilator most of the time and on oxygen to allow her to eat yoghurt or drink smoothies for short periods during the day. She is fully cognitive with a memory that would put most of us to shame. She can walk a short distance with assistance but she is physically very weak. This is Olivia's reality and it is lived out in the clinical surroundings of a medical facility while her two small children play at her bedside. I think everyone here, and beyond here, will feel the intense sorrow of that image.

The team at Cavan intensive care unit, for whom the family has nothing but praise, says that Olivia should be at home with 24-hour nursing care for her needs. However, Olivia cannot go home to her family because the HSE has refused to fund a home care package. Olivia applied for the intensive home care grant following her discharge, but this was turned down on 3 May last due to funding. To add to her sense of despair, she was informed on 14 June that her application for the older person's home care grant was also rejected. These rejections have taken their toll.

I raise this issue with the Taoiseach as a last resort for this family. Olivia celebrated her last birthday, her tenth wedding anniversary and both of her children's birthdays in Cavan intensive care unit. She wants to go home to her family. This is a human and instinctive need that everyone will understand. We all need to be in the company of our loved ones and to feel the comfort of familiar surroundings, particularly if we are sick or vulnerable. In its 2018 pre-budget submission published today, Family Carers Ireland states that for too long home care has been underfunded, inconsistent and inequitable. We are spending €11 million less on home care than we did in 2008. At the beginning of May 4,500 people were waiting for home care packages. Vulnerable citizens must be provided with long-term care in their homes when needed. Olivia is just one of those citizens. Will the Government give Olivia the dignity of being able to return home to her family by funding the home care package she so desperately needs?

The Deputy will appreciate that I do not have specific details on individual cases to hand. There are no patient files on my desk, and even if there were, it would be inappropriate to discuss patient information in this House. I know from my previous work as a medical doctor the difficulty and enormous barriers there can be to providing 24-7 nursing care with ventilation at home. It is difficult to provide and is not as straightforward as a normal home care or intensive home care package.

With regard to the general issue, the number of delayed discharges, where people are in hospitals waiting on home care packages to go home, has fallen considerably in recent years. It peaked at approximately 830 in 2014 and has now fallen to 537. There is still a long way to go but we are in a much better position with regard to delayed discharges generally than we were two years ago. The budget for home care packages and home help has been increased this year to €367 million. That is providing 10.5 million home help hours and 16,750 home care packages this year, an increase from 15,000 last year. Some 1,750 more people will get home care packages this year than did last year. In addition, funding has been retained for 190 intensive home care packages, which is a considerable number.

As regards individual cases, I cannot say why that individual was not approved for an intensive home care package or one of the additional home care packages that are now being funded, but I will ask the Minister for Health to follow up on the matter with the Deputy.

I can tell the Taoiseach why Olivia is still in one of only three intensive care unit beds in Cavan General Hospital. She is there unnecessarily and is aware of that. She is very distressed by it. The reason she is there is that the HSE, despite the medical advice and view that she ought to go home, refuses to fund the home care package.

I beg to differ with the Taoiseach. It is incredibly appropriate that he would address himself to Olivia and her family, and do so beyond statistics and figures. This is a young mother who is very sick. She has a six year old and a seven year old and for the past seven months they have been in and out of hospital, playing at her bedside. She wants to, and can, go home. The single barrier between her and her home and family is the HSE and its failure to fund the requisite care. I ask the Taoiseach, as the head of the Government and as a person, to give a commitment today that he will ensure the HSE will release the funds required in order that Olivia can go home.

She is a sick woman who has asked me, as a matter of last resort, to ask the Taoiseach to intervene and ensure the right thing is done.

I will certainly have the case looked into and I will discuss it with the Minister for Health and ask that full consideration is given to it. However, what I will not do in the House - it would not be the right thing to do even if I had the authority to do so - is direct that the Health Service Executive do anything in any individual case. That is not how decisions should be made. It is important that decisions are made by the professionals and that where resources have to be allocated, they are allocated in that way. I do not think that because a case is raised in the Dáil, it should cause a particular decision to be ordered or made.

That is not the reason. The woman in question has been in intensive care for seven months.

As I say, from my experience as a medical doctor, providing 24-7 care in the home requiring ventilation at the level of the type of care provided in an ICU is very difficult and can be very challenging to provide, even if funding is available. I will certainly endeavour to have the Minister for Health follow up on the case. I mention again that there has been a significant increase in funding for home care packages this year, with the number of packages increasing from 15,000 to 16,750.