Query over €1m bonus v €50 home help

HEALTH Service Executive (HSE) bosses were awarded €1.23 million in bonus payments in 2006, yet a man could not get four hours of home help to keep his elderly mother out of a nursing home, a Dáil committee heard yesterday.

Fine Gael TD Padraic McCormack told the public accounts committee how a small farmer in Clonbur, Co Galway, was managing to keep his elderly mother at home since 2005 with eight hours of home help provided by the HSE.

When one of the assistants left last year because of family reasons, the farmer was unable to get a replacement because of the recruitment embargo.