Kifca McNamee is a woman from County Meath who is in her early 40s. She has a neurodegenerative disorder. She was living independently in her own home. Like many others, she caught Covid and was brought into hospital. Instead of being discharged from hospital, she was given no care package and had to remain in hospital. She was not on her own. Information that I have received has shown that there are 536 people who have been clinically discharged from hospital but who remain in hospital. Some of them have been there for up to 18 months. After a number of months, Kifca was transferred to a nursing home. There she resides with people who are 40 years her senior. She cannot get back to her own home because there is no care package available for her. We were told to find the staff and we did. Now, we are being told that the funding is not available. Kifca is being excluded from normal society because of a lack of funding being made available. Will the Government help to ensure that a care package is in place for her so that she can rejoin life?

I thank the Deputy for his question. The current budget for home care support for this year is €666 million, with 5 million extra home care hours being provided. Last year, we delivered 2.9 million more hours on the previous year to 55,000 people. If the Deputy sends me the specifics on the case to which he referred, we will look into it. The difficulty that we are facing currently is that although we have the funding, there are approximately 5,000 people waiting for supports because there are challenges with staffing issues.

The strategic workforce planning group will hold its first meeting next week, and we are trying to address these issues. If the Deputy sends me the details of this issue, I will have a look at it.