The home help service in Mayo is set to be decimated with the revelation that HSE West plans to save €550,000 in the service. According to Mayo Fine Gael TD John O’Mahony, the result of this latest set of cutbacks will be that people who are benefiting from the service will have their home help visits cut back to mere minutes in many cases.
“Home help hours should not be turned into home help minutes,” said Deputy O’Mahony. “If this goes ahead, hundreds of people who are living throughout Mayo will suffer. People who are in receipt of Home Help rely on it to maintain a certain quality of life. It’s not just the practical aspect of the visit that’s so important; in so many cases there is a relationship between the person doing the Home Help and the person living in the house and they rely on that visit for some sort of social interaction.
“This decision to save money will have a devastating impact on those people and has to be resisted in every way possible. I certainly will be doing all I can to ensure these cutbacks are looked at again. How is it that when savings are to be made, this Government always seems to target the vulnerable while at the same time they bail out those that have brought this country to its knees?” he asked.
