The Government's pledge to increase home help hours by 800,000 is not on track, according to a Fianna Fáil city councillor, and on current HSE figures "will not even reach half of that target".
This is the view of Cllr Ollie Crowe, who has called on the Government to take measures to ensure home help hours reach their targets for 2019. He said the service was "of vital importance" to those caring for elderly family members.
He also pointed out that the hours currently being received by those availing of the home help scheme "are very minimal", while procuring extra hours is "almost impossible" regardless of circumstances.
Cllr Crowe is calling on the Minister for Health, Simon Harris, to "take urgent action" on this matter. He also said clarification around entitlements under the scheme needed to be enacted on a statutory basis, noting there is "currently no consistency" in cases with almost identical situations, resulting in "very different results" in terms of the number of support hours granted.
