I am more interested in the food after the Pilates class. I welcome and support the Bill, which provides a registration framework for home support providers while making it an offence to operate a home support service without registration and incorporating transitional arrangements for existing home support providers. Home support providers will be required to adhere to a registration framework supported by national quality standards developed by HIQA and meet minimum requirements set out under ministerial regulations. The Bill will safeguard service users and raise the quality and consistency of care nationally. It is on the consistency of care nationally that I want to focus some of my contribution I acknowledge that the Minister of State and I represent constituencies in the same HSE region, which is HSE mid-west, and I also want to acknowledge his work and passion in this area. I particularly want to acknowledge his recent visit to the Newport day care centre and the work he is doing there. Among other issues we are working on in the constituency, I want to recognise that. I also want to recognise and discuss the major challenges we are facing in north Tipperary in relation to home help hours. As many other speakers I am sure will say in the debate and have experienced, it is not really an issue getting hours allocated for someone who needs them, particularly an elderly person in their home, but there is a major challenge in getting those hours filled. I have two examples I would like to share without giving personal details. These are two really challenging cases. We have lots of cases out there of people who need the help at home, but these are two cases that I find hard to understand how these individuals are still in their homes while their care hours have been pulled because private providers are no longer able to meet their contractual obligations. One individual had two carers coming in twice a day, but consistent care ceased in October. I am told that sometimes they receive a reduced schedule or none at all. They no longer receive a schedule in advance, which is highly unsuitable for a family trying to cover the level of care for this individual. This person has motor neurone disease. The person has no mobility and requires the use of hoists to get in and out of chairs and beds. It came as a massive blow to the family to find out that the hours were being cut because the contracted provider could no longer fulfil its contractual obligations. I do not know how a family with the added stress and worry of a family member who needs to be cared for at home can function when people are trying to go to work or to school and having to fit this in around schedules. This person can be cared for best at home with their family in a loving environment, but the family is really struggling now. Another case I have relates to an individual who was getting three calls a day, with one hour for each call, seven days a week. There were three different individuals calling to the home. The family recognised the level of care was exceptional and the individual getting the level of care relied on it, but really appreciated it, needed it and never had a complaint about it. Of the three people who called, one went on maternity leave and another left the job to go into another one, which resulted in the contract being pulled. I have been over and back with the HSE on both of these cases. I will send them on to the Minister of State straight after this debate and thank him for that. To be fair to HSE, it has been very good to come back to me during my engagements with it, but the responses have not solved the problems for us. That is the reason I am highlighting both cases. They are high-dependency cases. These are two individuals who can stay in their own homes, but only if care is provided. That brings me to my overall point and one that others have made, which is that the contracted hours to private providers clearly are not working in my part of the country and I imagine they are not working in many parts of the country. There is a battle with the HSE to get those hours filled. It can only do so much when it does not have all of the staff to cover the hours that are being allocated to people. It is creating enormous uncertainty, worry, anxiety and massive pressure on the person relying on the care but also the family members who are then trying to step in and cover the care when they simply cannot do it. For those carers who are caring for a loved one at home, that hour in the day or couple of hours in the week could be their only respite. It might be the only break they get to get out the house for an hour or even half an hour and do something for themselves. In the cases where the contracts are being handed back, that is being pulled from them. It is just being taken from them. It is the one respite they can get. While I am on carers and family carers, I want to acknowledge the Leas-Cheann Comhairle and the issue he raised last week relating to the Revenue during Questions on Promised Legislation. I understand the good news he got today in relation to back taxes that were being claimed. I acknowledge that the Leas-Cheann Comhairle did an extremely important piece of work. Carer's allowance should not be taxed. The amount that carers save this State by caring for loved ones at home - in their own home or the loved one's home - is absolutely astronomical. The level of personal care they get and the love they get from the loved one who cares for them should not go unrecognised in the sense that the allowance is being taxed like an income. The carer does not do that work for an income. They do it out of personal care, love and affection for their family member and should not face a tax bill. If that carer did not do that work, how much would it cost the State to have their loved one in a healthcare setting or in a hospital bed when we need those beds, particularly in the mid-west? I acknowledge the challenges that are there for homecare providers in terms of the level of staffing that is there and the challenges placed on loved ones and family members when that care is pulled, but also the stress that is being put on carers by being taxed. That is something we really have to look at in the context of a budget.

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