1,300 people in Cork and Kerry on home care waiting list; Minister says finding staff is an issue

The Minister of State for Older People Mary Butler has acknowledged that waiting lists for home support in Cork and Kerry have “always been longer than anywhere else” in Ireland.

Fianna Fáil TD for Cork North Central Pádraig O’Sullivan raised the issue in the Dáil, saying: “The Cork-Kerry region has approximately 1,300 people on its home care waiting list, accounting for nearly one quarter of the national list of 6,000.

“I acknowledge the work the Minister of State has done in recent years and she has received additional funding in the most recent budget, but it has not trickled down to Cork and Kerry.

“At the most recent meeting that TDs from my area attended with the HSE, we were told that it took nine months to hire a home care worker on average,” asking Ms Butler to outline what would be done to tackle the issue.

Ms Butler responded: “Improving access to home support is a priority for me and the Government. The overall budget for home support in 2025 will be approximately €838m, €122 more than was secured in budget 2024.”

She said: “I am disappointed to hear that the waiting list in the CHO 4 area, which has always been longer than anywhere else, is in or around 1,300, accounting for approximately one-fifth of the country’s entire waiting list.

“At the moment, I can fund all of the home care that is necessary,” Ms Butler said, but explained that finding and hiring staff to provide all the care that was needed was an issue, with rural areas most affected.

She explained: “We delivered an additional one million hours from July 2023 to July 2024, but the problem lies in trying to get the staff to deliver that support, especially in rural areas and at weekends.”

It comes as CEO of Alone Seán Moynihan told the Oireachtas Health Committee over the summer: “Last year’s tender pricing model, by virtue of not funding travel expenses and only partially funding travel time, ensured that private providers were increasingly only taking on clients who were close to where workers were based.

“Otherwise, the services became loss making. This impacts rural, hard-to-reach and high-traffic urban areas.”

Ms Butler told Mr O’Sullivan: “We will continue doing more. Next year, we will deliver 24 million hours of home care. Every additional hour that is delivered makes a significant difference to the people living in their own areas.”

She added: “The situation the Deputy described is disappointing. There are areas in north County Dublin where there are no waiting lists for home care, yet there are other areas that account for one fifth of the national waiting list. It is challenging.”