I welcome the moves in this Bill to regulate private providers and to set minimum standards for services. However, this Bill is far from what it could have been. The current and previous programme for Government promised a statutory home care scheme but after five years, the Government has only got as far as a register of private providers. There is nothing in this Bill about access and affordability of different levels of care. It is a system designed around private provision. The ambition of the Government should be to build a genuinely public health and social care system accessible to all. In County Galway, 362 people are waiting for either a new home care package or additional supports that they have been found to be entitled to. These are often very vulnerable people. Many are suffering because they are not receiving those supports they are entitled to. This is a critical support to ensuring people can continue to live independently in their homes for as long as that is their wish. Government failure is pushing older people into hospitals and nursing homes and adding to the pressure on those services, when people could and should be cared for in their own homes. I was recently contacted by a woman who had spinal surgery. She is unable to move out of the bed by herself as a result. She is not getting the full allocation of hours she needs. A man who recently had been in hospital for 15 weeks has Parkinson's disease, heart failure and other health issues. He cannot walk. He needs help to be fed. He needs to be hoisted in and out of bed. The family was told he would not get all the hours he is entitled to and not in the evening time or at weekends. We cannot underestimate the human impact of this situation. Some of the most vulnerable people are being failed. Delivering proper home care would reduce the length of hospital stays and reduce the risk of hospitalisation, which would, in turn, reduce hospital pressure. We have an ageing population. We need to plan and prepare for this and do everything we can to support people to live independently and take the pressure off hospitals and nursing homes. The long-promised statutory home care scheme centred on access and a legal entitlement to home care must finally be progressed to ensure people have that choice, alongside proper resourcing and building up the public system instead of relying on outsourcing. I also want to speak about healthcare assistants who provide these services. The HSE has not fulfilled previous agreements with staff around working conditions and issues like the lack of a roster system and overtime pay. All of this is leading to stress and burnout. I know the staff in a number of counties have been balloted by their union but the same issues are replicated across the State. I call on the Minister and the HSE to engage with their representatives and get these issues resolved. They are a very important group of workers who deserve to be treated fairly. Finally, I just want to express concern regarding the letters that have been issued to family carers, who do Trojan work as we all know. We need absolute clarity that family carers will not be pursued by the Revenue. They have been treated shamefully for so long, despite the fact they save the State billions of euro every year. Pursuing them for tax liabilities would be in stark contrast to the treatment of Government Ministers who have been overpaid and have failed to pay back money owed. These family carers play a vital role. The Government's objective should be to support them and not to pursue them for tax liability. We need absolute clarity on this.

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