Carol Nolan: Urgent Call to Fix Home-Help Recruitment and Pay
Carol Nolan raised concerns about home-help services, saying recruitment, retention and pay must be improved. She argued that planned home-support hours in CH08 have not matched reality and urged changes to terms and mileage to retain staff.
Local home-help shortages
She described elderly people in the constituency of Lee Shoffley being left without replacement care when a home-help is off sick, leaving carers and families stretched and vulnerable.
Recruitment, retention and pay
She said recruitment and retention will not improve without better pay and working conditions, and highlighted mileage as a major issue for home-helps doing essential work.
Planned hours versus reality
She noted the CH08 plan to deliver over 2.3 million hours of home support this year, including 580,542 hours planned for Counties Leish and Offaly, but stressed that the reality on the ground remains very different.
Praise for carers' organisations
She commended the Cares Association and Family Cares Ireland, saying they emphasise that caring for people in their own homes preserves independence and dignity and also saves the state money.
Suggested priorities
She urged addressing pay, conditions and recruitment to increase the number of home-helps and improve delivery of home-support hours.
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What a good minister. I just want to start off by saying that we still have huge issues in the constituency of Lee Shoffley in regard to home help and you know I'm aware of so many situations where an elderly person is trying to care for a son or daughter and home help is out sick and we can all be out from time to time but then there's no replacement for that home help and they're let down very badly and I do feel that certainly something needs to be done in terms of recruitment and retention but if we are to address recruitment and retention issues in terms of home cares we need to offer better pay conditions and obviously the mileage it's been brought to my attention is a huge issue for home helps I mean they are doing fantastic work but again they're stretched and there's not enough of them and that's the issue really and so I would like to see that addressed I know that in CH08 the plan is to deliver over 2.3 million hours of home support this year of which 580,542 2.3 million hours is planned for Counties Leish and Offaly but unfortunately the reality is still very different. I do want to commend the Cares Association and Family Cares Ireland also. Family Cares Ireland have pointed out that caring for people in their own homes and maintaining their independence and dignity is so important and it is what people want and what they value and certainly it is saving the state also. So I believe that if the issues were addressed in terms of those that I've laid out in terms of maybe addressing the paying conditions and trying to recruit more carers or more home helps we might be getting somewhere. Thanks.
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