The Prime Minister this Saturday assured of normalization, predictability and more equitable co-financing in the coming years, given that the social sector plays a fundamental role, above all in response to the size of continuing care centers and kindergartens.
This position was conveyed to António Costa at the closing session of the União das Misericórdias Portuguesas National Congress, which took place in Lisbon.
Following a speech by Manuel de Lemos, President of the União das Misericórdias Portuguesas, with several warnings, as well as complaints against the government, in which he drew attention to the impact of increased costs on wages and the sustainability of missions, the Chief Executive devoted the final part of his speech to the issue of co-financing.
“The size of integrated long-term care and day care centers is fundamental. We have an agreement arising from the pact that these are two areas in which the state entrusts the necessary measures to the social sector and the solidarity sector and therefore undertakes to co-finance these efforts on an equitable basis,” the Prime Minister said.
In his speech, António Costa also defended the thesis that “it is necessary to combine a reaction to the conjuncture with permanent and structural reactions.”
“The successive conjunctures that we have been experiencing since March 2020, with the covid-19 pandemic and then inflation, have made structural responses difficult because extraordinary responses have often had to be urgently resorted to. especially for those who believe, it’s nice to believe that we won’t live forever moments of exclusion,” he said, drawing laughter from the audience.
In Antonio Costa’s view, after the pandemic and the inflationary shock, “everything will certainly move towards a moment of greater normalization, when funds raised on an emergency basis can begin to be consolidated as permanent funds that will help accelerate the convergence to equitable co-financing.”
“It is on this basis that we must work, because it is on this basis that we have been successfully working in recent years,” he said.
Continuing on the issue of financing institutions in the field of social solidarity, the Prime Minister noted the recent reprogramming carried out in the Recovery and Resilience Program (PRR) and the fact that an initial allocation of 800 million euros was used for social response activities.
“It was already the largest investment in social equipment in such a short period. But thanks to the extraordinary response capacity of solidarity and the social sector, in particular mercy, in the PRR reprogramming exercise, it was backed up by more than 100 million euros. , which now amounts to 900 million euros,” he stressed.
At the very beginning of his speech, the Prime Minister praised the actions of social institutions in the fight against the covid-19 pandemic, especially among the elderly.
“It is worth paying tribute to the extraordinary effort and human dedication that was required from those who led and worked in charitable organizations. Thousands of lives have been saved thanks to your work. There were many more of them than those that, unfortunately, were lost in the fight against the virus,” he said.