Home Help Service
Dail Éireann — 2026-03-05
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Kieran O'Donnell (FG), Limerick City

In my role as Minister of State for older people, particularly dealing with home support services, I want to bring down the waiting lists. I want the HSE to actively recruit staff. I have met with the HSE about that on a number of occasions. For the first time, in the national service delivery plan for the HSE we are looking specifically to reduce waiting lists. As it stands, 39 additional healthcare assistants have been recruited by the HSE since September for Donegal. There are 43 candidates who have been offered roles and 17 of those have already gone through pre-employment clearance and a further 26 are undergoing it. There are also interviews taking place for 50 candidates. These are all people who will be employed by the HSE as home care assistants. The Deputy has a job to do as a representative for Donegal. I have a job to do as Minister of State. We got approval this year for an additional 250 whole-time equivalents. That is something I continue to engage with the HSE on, as well as reducing the waiting lists.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-03-05/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:44+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-03-05