Is the Taoiseach aware of a crisis in the provision of home care packages throughout the various community healthcare organisations, CHOs? It seems that industrial relations commitments, including the provision of expenses for travel, have hoovered up most of the additional funding allocated by the HSE to CHOs. Many CHO areas are now in a position whereby they must cease issuing home care packages for several months. I am informed that there are waiting lists of 300 people in some areas. This is obviously causing serious distress to the system, where acute beds are being taken up, and among families and patients. To give just one very good example, a 92 year old gentleman in Sligo University Hospital was admitted for just seven days, and some 70 days later, having been approved for home help, he was not in a position to be discharged because the home help was not available due to pressure on budgets. Will the Taoiseach instruct the HSE to provide additional resources to each CHO area to ensure that they have adequate money to issue home care packages or, if necessary, produce an appropriate supplementary budget specifically to deal with this matter?

I call Deputies Scanlon and Martin Kenny on the same matter. I expect it will be a raised as a Topical Issue matter.

Yes, I hope to raise it later as a Topical Issue matter. I do not know what the situation is in other areas, but in the CHO 1 area there are terminally ill people on a waiting list for home help to allow them to return home. Deputy McLoughlin is aware of this as well. It is very serious issue. I ask that the decent thing be done. The Government should inform the people that there is no home help and that there will not be any or else it should put some structure in place regarding these necessary cases of very sick people in order that will be home help for them. The Government should at least put funding in place such that those to whom I refer can be assisted in remaining at home, which is where they need and want to be.

This is turning into a situation in which very many elderly and sick people feel they have been abandoned by Government, that they have paid taxes all their lives and that in their hour of need when they require a little help, it is not there. As everyone in this House knows and as the general public is aware, any cost-benefit analysis will indicate that home help services and home care packages represent probably the best value for money of all Government spending because they keep people out of hospitals. They are the stitch in time that saves nine, yet we continually come in here and raise this issue to no avail. Since my election to this House, I and many other Deputies have pleaded with Government to provide more money for home help services and home care packages. We continually get the same result. When we go back and talk to our constituents about this, they inform us that their district nurses have stated, "Sorry, there is no money available. You will have to wait."

I thank the Deputy. He has made his point.

Then they must pay for the service themselves. Even if they are prepared to do so, the service is not available. The Taoiseach really needs to intervene.

I support Deputy MacSharry. In the past two weeks, Dr. Donal Murray, a consultant cardiologist, highlighted the case of one of his patients in Sligo University Hospital to Oireachtas Members.

I support what my three colleagues have said regarding a person having to spend an additional 70 days in Sligo University Hospital when he or she could have been at home if the appropriate services were in place.

I thank the Deputies for raising this issue. Additional funding was provided in the budget this year for home help and home care packages. I am afraid I do not have details on how it is being distributed around the country or on individual cases. I understand, however, that there will be a Topical Issue debate on this issue later today. I imagine the Minister for Health or a Minister of State in his Department will be present and may be able to give Deputies a more detailed answer.