Growing old in modern Ireland and particularly in west Cork is extremely difficult, to say the least, with people on massive waiting lists even though many are only seeking minor procedures. Many thousands more are waiting months for carer's allowance for caring for a loved one or a neighbour. Tens of thousands are waiting for eye surgery, mainly cataract surgery, which is a 15-minute procedure, but cannot have it carried out in the Republic before they go blind. However, this is not the subject of my question.

The home help service has saved the State millions of euro in the past. The workers, mainly women, have been the most unrecognised heroines of our time. Every Member of the Dáil knows they go far beyond the call of duty for the people to whom they are assigned. They do this without a second thought. The State must examine how it has treated the home help women. Time after time, we hear in the Dáil that home helps cannot be found to carry out the work and that new home helps are being sought. These statements are completely misleading the people. Many elderly people desperately need extra hours. Some have a home help service for a half hour in the morning five days per week, but people in west Cork are told that they will not get extra hours on Saturdays and Sundays as the service cannot get the workers. We know differently. All the workers who have done such an excellent job through the years are desperately seeking extra hours, but they are not given them. Either we are being misled in the Dáil or the home help service is being run shambolically and requires urgent change to ensure the millions of euro will be allocated to the elderly and the home helps who provide the service.

The insulting way the Government has treated the elderly and the home help women is enough to prompt a national inquiry, and I shudder to think what the conclusion of that inquiry would be. Time and again we have been given different spins in the Dáil about the home help service, but Deputies know what is happening on the ground. Home help workers who have done their best for the State for many years are being starved of home help hours and the elderly and others who need extra hours in many cases are being left home alone from Friday morning until Monday morning. This is scandalous, to say the least. Last Tuesday, the Taoiseach spoke about the home help service in reply to questions. He said the Government cannot keep pouring extra money into the service without reviewing where it is going. The public, the home help women and the elderly would like to ask the Government where the money has gone because it did not get to the people concerned. How can a Taoiseach state that millions of euro in additional funding is being put into the service when the people on the ground are not getting a proper service and the home helps are not being allocated extra hours?

It is time to stop the spin on this issue. For once, instead of listening to spin doctors, will the Tánaiste listen to the elderly and the people working on the front line on how they have been treated? Will a proper home help service be rolled out to those who need and deliver the service in the way it should be, to stop millions of euro being squandered needlessly and not getting to those who desperately need the service? Will the Tánaiste request that a survey be carried out of home help workers to ask them how many hours they are working and whether they will accept extra hours if they are offered? Those are serious questions that must be asked of every person who delivers a brilliant service.

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. We all share the common objective of improving the quality of life of older people. The home help support is a core service for older people and is highly valued by the service users, their families and the Health Service Executive, HSE, which provides the service. It provides supports that assist older people to live independently in their homes for longer and enables larger numbers of people to return home following acute hospital admission who otherwise would remain in hospital or potentially would be admitted to long-stay residential care.

Over the past number of years, improving access to home support has been a priority for the Government. This can be seen in the way the home support budget has increased from a base of €306 million in 2015 to the expected expenditure of almost €420 million in 2018. Overall, the HSE national service plan provided for more than 17 million home support hours to be delivered to 50,500 people. In addition, a further 156,000 hours relating to adverse weather funding were provided from spring 2018. Intensive home care packages will be delivered to approximately 235 people at any time and will deliver a further approximately 360,000 hours in a full year. Despite this significant level of service provision, demand continues to rise. All those waiting are assessed and provided with a service, if appropriate, as soon as possible having regard to their needs. People being discharged from an acute hospital who are in a position to return home with supports are prioritised. At the end of August, preliminary figures indicate that 6,269 people approved for new or additional home supports were waiting for funding to be made available.

There is a constant increase in demand in this area for understandable reasons. We have an ageing population and there has been a significant increase in the population over the age of 70 years. That trend will continue. We want people to live in their own homes for as long as possible and to give them the supports that allow them to do that. We are putting in place a new statutory scheme for home support. The Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Jim Daly, is working on that. A great deal is happening in this space but I accept that there is much more to be done.

The Tánaiste keeps spinning figures and statements at us when we raise this issue. The reality in the community is very different. When did the Tánaiste last speak to a home help woman who delivers the service? When did he last speak to an elderly person who requires the service and cannot get it? I have been doing both throughout west Cork for a lengthy period.

The results of my consultation with both demonstrates the shocking way in which they have been treated. Only a few weeks ago one home help woman who has spent many years delivering home help services told me no home help personnel would vote in the presidential election. I asked why and she told me it was because the political system had let them down year after year so badly. In the programme for Government discussions nearly three years ago, we spoke about having home help services on a Saturday and Sunday. A promise to deliver this was made but in west Cork, like the rest of the country, it is almost impossible to get a proper weekday service, never mind a service on Saturday and Sunday.

Will the Tánaiste promise the Dáil to work on taking the roll-out of this home help service out of the hands who have failed to deliver to the elderly and start getting the service delivered by those who can do it? I previously asked him to order a survey of home help personnel to give us feedback on how they are treated.

It is important to note it is wrong to say people are not being given home help support. We know many more such supports are being given but the demand is increasing with that. It is like so many areas across the health sector, where we are dramatically increasing funding and improving the quality of services while trying to deal with a significant increase in demand at the same time. It is happening in the disability sector, and although there are more disability services in Ireland than ever, there is also more demand. It is the same with hospital care and elderly care. Through the HSE service plans we must provide increased resources year after year to improve the quality of services, recognising the growth in demand that is there. Of course, we are trying to move away from acute care by investing more money in home care and primary healthcare services. This will allow people to get the supports they need while living in their communities in places like west Cork. We do not want families to have to travel many miles to visit loved ones in acute care, residential care or hospitals. We want them at home with the necessary supports provided by the HSE.

Give them the help then.

It is what we are trying to achieve and we are investing significantly more money to do that.

What about the survey?