This point of view of António Costa was broadcast during the closing session of the National Congress of the União das Misericórdias Portuguesas, which took place in Lisbon.
After an intervention with several warnings and also claims to the government by the President of the União das Misericórdias Portuguesas, Manuel de Lemos – in which he drew attention to the impact of the increase in labor costs and the sustainability of the missions carried out -, the leader of the executive devoted the last part of his speech to the issue of co-financing.
“The dimensions of integrated long-term care centers and nurseries are fundamental. The agreement we have, which stems from the Pact, is that these are two areas where the State entrusts the necessary responses to the social and solidarity sector and therefore commits to these co-finance the effort in an equitable manner,” the prime minister said.
In his speech, António Costa also defended the proposition that “a combination between the cyclical reaction and the permanent and structural reactions” is necessary.
“The successive cycles we have been going through since March 2020, with the covid-19 pandemic and then inflation, have made structural responses more difficult, as it has often been urgent to use extraordinary responses. Especially for those who are confident, it is good to believe that we will not live exceptional moments forever,” he said, which made the audience laugh.
From the perspective of António Costa, after the pandemic and the inflationary shock, “everything will certainly move towards a moment of greater normalization, in which the funds mobilized on an extraordinary basis can begin to consolidate as permanent funds helping to accelerate the convergence towards fair co-financing”.
“It is on this basis that we must work, because it is on this basis that we have worked successfully in recent years,” he insisted.
Still on funding institutions in the social solidarity sector, the Prime Minister noted the recent reprogramming in the Recovery and Resilience Program (PRR) and the fact that an initial allocation of €800 million was used for interventions in the scope of social responses .
“This was already the largest ever investment in social equipment in such a short period of time. But thanks to the extraordinary response capacity of the solidarity and social sector, in particular the mercies, in the PRR reprogramming exercise, it was reinforced by more than 100 million euros, which now totals 900 million euros,” he stressed.
Right at the beginning of his speech, the Prime Minister strongly complimented the performance of social sector institutions in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic, especially among older citizens.
“It is worth paying tribute to the extraordinary effort and human dedication required of those who led and worked for the charities. Thousands of lives were saved thanks to your work. There were many more than those, unfortunately, lost in the fight against the virus,” he said.
Source: DN
