I welcome the Government bringing forward legislation to regulate the private home care sector. What is disappointing is that after five years, all the Government has to show for itself is this Bill regulating the sector. What was promised what a statutory home care scheme, which would be a better and improved version of the nursing home support scheme. Sinn Féin believes that people deserve to live in their homes as long as they can. The Bill falls well short of what is needed. It addresses nothing about access or affordability and more deeply entrenches the privatisation of care. Crucially, it fails to recognise the difference between funding for basic assistance and high-need care with few exceptions. We often talk about the need for issues to be addressed more wholly or holistically. The Government needs to place a greater priority on supporting people to age in place through home support and adoption grants to ensure healthy age-friendly homes. Long-term residential care needs to be available for those who need or want it but it should not be the default. We should seek to reduce our reliance on nursing homes and re-orientate care to support this. I recently saw an age-friendly home development down the country and it looked like an incredible development. I also commend the work of the team in Monaghan County Council on its age friendly programme, but a greater priority needs to be placed on this issue and more resources directed there. Part of why this Bill is disappointing is not only does it not appear that it is simply one part of a whole strategy in terms of care and housing for people as they age, it does not even appear to be the level of substance needed to address this one area - home care within the home. Facilitating people to age in place reduces pressures on our hospitals. It facilitates people to continue to live in their own communities. I say "facilitates" rather than "allows" because unless it is necessary, people should be entitled to age within their homes or facilitated through appropriate accommodations to age within their own communities as much as is possible. In only the past day, the media have highlighted what has been described as a growing crisis in the number of older people becoming homeless. The Simon Communities have highlighted that hundreds of people over 65 are living in emergency accommodation. Ireland's ageing population necessitates a whole-of-government response, in terms housing, our funding models and care. That is the Minister of State's specific remit. What I ask him take away from this is that the Government is not doing enough and certainly not at pace. For all the announcements, statements of strategy, implementation plans, action plans or whole-of-government announcements, it often seems that we actually get very little done and that something needs to change radically. What is needed now is for access and affordability to be addressed and the Minister of State to outline how the Government intends to address the difference in funding based on need. I would really appreciate if he could do this in his reply.

Sentiment score: 0.24