There is a clear commitment in the programme for Government to provide home care services, home care packages and home help services for elderly people. In recent weeks, I have been inundated with people coming to me trying to get additional home help hours that they cannot get. When I speak to the service in the north west, it tells me it would need to get at least 20% more funding to provide adequately for the number of people who need to get the service. Most people are being told they have to pay for the home help services privately to be able to subsidise the State's intervention. It is really unacceptable because many people are on the poverty line. They find that when an elderly relative or another individual comes home from hospital, they cannot get home help services for him or her. They are told to pay for it themselves when they cannot afford to do so. In the forthcoming budget, I expect a strong commitment from the Government to put the funding in place to ensure the promise in the programme for Government is kept in respect of this. It saves money in the long run. Not only does it save money from the point of view of the health service but it also puts money into the hands of people living in rural areas, many of whom are providing the service. It makes absolute sense. It is the one area in which the Government needs to invest with absolute haste.

On the same matter, I raised this with the Tánaiste last week and he did not give a satisfactory answer. As I can hear in the Dáil Chamber, there is a chronic crisis in the home help sector right across the country, particularly in my area. Home help organiser posts are not being filled. This is leading to a chronic backlog that dates right back to the end of June. No extra home help has been given to patients who have been discharged. In cases where patients are waiting to be discharged, the Government should put a proper home care package in place. It makes no economic sense to do what is now being done because it is costing the State on the other side. We need to be very realistic. The home help package is a massive facility for elderly people, in particular. What is happening is shameful.

I thank both Deputies for focusing our attention on this important issue. I agree with both in that I would like to see increased investment. The Government has increased the investment in home help budget on budget. I am very hopeful that we will do it again this year.

It is important to note, however, that there is a dual challenge; it is not just about funding. If we had all the money in the world in the morning, we would need to get the people to provide the service. In many areas, including mine, west Cork, the biggest challenge is not the financial one but getting people to deliver the service. As the Deputies will be aware, with a view to dealing with this I recently concluded a consultation with the public to hear its views on setting up a fair deal-type scheme, underpinned by statute, that would guarantee the delivery of home help hours and the appropriate training, and require a requisite number of staff to provide the service. That will take two to three years to bring about, bearing in mind that the fair deal scheme itself took seven to eight years to introduce. We are working and making a lot of progress towards that. In the meantime, however, I hope we will see an increase in this year’s budget, but it will not solve all the ills in the area of home help.