The home help service is a hugely valuable service throughout the country that is enabling people to stay longer in their homes.

Families and people who avail of the service build up a rapport with the home help staff they have been working with for two, three, four or maybe ten years. Now, the HSE has, in its wisdom, said that it will rotate the home care assistants and that they will only be working with a patient for one week out of every three or four. There would be no continuity in the care that is provided in people's homes. It is a retrograde step and I ask the Taoiseach and Government to look at it. I think the rapport that is built up gives comfort to the patient and builds up a rapport with the home care assistant too. I would like to have that review stopped.

I thank the Deputy for raising the important issue of home care. Today, 56,000 people across the length and breadth of the country will receive home care. I am lucky to have a budget of €730 million from the Government to make sure that we can deliver as much home care as possible. In the four years since this Government came to power, 4.1 million extra hours of home care have been provided. Regarding Cork South-West and the Deputy's own area, the HSE has made changes. We saw the same changes made in Waterford over the past two years. The goal is to put a team in place in an area where there would be four people that the person would be familiar with. The reason behind it is that some people need care three times a day for seven days of the week. You cannot have the same person providing that care, especially at the weekends and on bank holidays. Teams have been put in place that people would be familiar with. I can look at any specific issues the Deputy is aware of. The whole purpose is to make sure that we have staff readily available on Saturdays and Sundays.