Shane Jennings is not a man to go with the flow. Along with Leo Cullen, he is credited with bringing a harder edge to Leinster Rugby in 2007 on their return from a two-season stint with Leicester.
Jennings has been quick to deflect that credit, noting that coach Michael Cheika, who led the province to their first Heineken Cup victory in 2009, had already instilled a new regime when he and Cullen returned from what was then a much more professional set-up at Leicester.
Still, no less a taskmaster than Johnny Sexton has described Jennings and Cullen as the “standard-setters” in demanding player accountability, leaders both vocally and by example. As he put it in his book, Becoming a Lion, “if Jenno or Leo said something around here, it was law”.
Another one-time Leinster and Ireland team-mate, Brian O’Driscoll described them as “the boys who came from Leicester and helped to raise the bar for us all”.
Jennings is now a decade out of professional rugby, part of the first generation to begin their senior careers after the game had set aside its amateur status.
During those playing days, he had always had one eye on the fact that there would inevitably be a life after rugby. He did a business degree in Portobello College at the start of his career and later, with support from the players’ union, undertook an MBA in Dublin Business School.
Even now he sings the praises of the players’ union in helping players make the transition to a life beyond professional rugby. He also notes the goodwill that exists in Ireland to former sportspeople, which can open many doors.
For him, that led to an opportunity with Sherry FitzGerald on retirement from the game. He had done work experience with the estate agent while still playing and was offered the role of business development manager, working with the company’s network of franchises across the State.
A year later another franchise business opportunity came knocking, at Home Instead Senior Care.
“It wasn’t as if I was specifically looking at homecare or a role in a [sector with a] medical background in any way; it was just an opportunity I saw in a growing industry,” he says.
When Ed Murphy and Michael Kearney first acquired the Irish rights to the franchise in 2005, they anticipated the potential to establish a network of 25 offices across the country, North and South, providing care to as many as 5,000 people by the end of that decade.
Now called Dovida, it has reached that target of 25 offices from which 3,800 staff oversee and provide care for close to 8,000 people, making it the biggest operator in a very fragmented sector.
[ Care group Dovida looks to hire up to 1,500 carers nationwideOpens in new window ]
Home Instead’s Irish business quickly became one of the most successful in a global franchise founded in 1994 in Omaha, Nebraska, by Paul and Lori Hogan looking for solutions that would support family carers while allowing elderly people, including Paul’s grandmother, to continue to live at home. By 2009, with a string of awards already behind it, they were among the finalists in the EY Entrepreneur of the Year awards.
Murphy and Kearney were still with the business when Jennings joined as director of franchise operations in 2016. He became chief operating officer in 2020 before taking over as chief executive in January 2023.
Earlier this year, the Irish business rebranded as Dovida. Why? The old name was well-known as the biggest and longest established homecare group in the State. And, for potential clients, it transparently described the nature of the services it offered.
The reason for the move to Dovida is simple. Paul Fritz, who owned the Swiss franchise for Home Instead, moved to acquire the business in six countries, including Ireland, from the US group. The Swiss-headquartered Horizon Home Care Group now owns the old Home Instead businesses in Ireland, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, France and the Netherlands.
According to accounts for Horizon, the Irish business appears to be the largest in the wider group.
An inevitable part of that transformation was the requirement to find a new name as Home Instead continues to operate in other markets. “So we rebranded to Dovida – a name that stems from the Latin domus, meaning a house or home, and vida, meaning life – in those six markets, and there’s been an amicable split from the US-based Home Instead franchise business,” says Jennings.
More than the name, he is focused on growing the business further. Ironically, given his background in franchising, Jennings now runs a business with a more familiar corporate structure, with Dovida having bought out all but one of its Irish franchisees.
“When it is a corporate entity, you have more control over the systems and the user experience of the system. In terms of having a shared function for finance or recruitment, we can streamline that, so that’s really been our focus.
“And we’re very fortunate in Ireland that we have a relationship with the HSE where there is demand for clients,” he says, noting that this is one way in which the Irish business differs from those in many other countries.
“It’s a demand-led business in Ireland and we focus on care hours, how we can add resources to fulfil that demand,” he says, noting that a recent report from industry group Home and Community Care Ireland found that 5,556 people were on a waiting list for homecare at the end of last year.
“So that’s where we see the opportunity.”
[ Homecare for older people: How does it work and who pays?Opens in new window ]
Dovida offers a range of nonmedical services for elderly people in need of support with personal care but it also works with younger people living with disabilities. Jennings says 10 per cent of the business’s clients are under the age of 65, with 1 per cent aged under 18.
The largest part of its business in common with most private providers in the sector comes from the HSE, which provides care on the basis of need rather than financial means, “and our goal each year is to try to maintain consistent stable growth from that business”.
Jennings is resolutely wary of discussing any hard numbers but, given HSE budget constraints, that is likely to amount to mid-single-digit growth on average.
One way to increase that is by providing resources in some mainly rural parts of the State that are poorly served, which is why Dovida has recently announced plans to add as many as 1,500 carers to its team, provided they can find sufficient candidates who meet the standard.
A similar exercise last year saw numbers grow by about 10 per cent.
Dovida has established its own training subsidiary to ensure it can retain control over the quality of the care it provides.
Given the outstanding waiting lists and the estimated 1,000 people with disability who also require home support services, “clearly more needs to be done to increase home care workforce capacity”, a policy document produced by the company notes.
“Furthermore, over 1,200 people under 65 are living in nursing homes, many against their will and preference, often due to a lack of homecare and support for complex homecare in their local community.
“Budgets need to be approved to support more than the mere 15 residents that the HSE plans to move out of nursing homes in 2025,” the company says.
[ ‘This is a very posh prison’: Living in a nursing home since the age of 46Opens in new window ]
Aside from HSE business, Dovida offers a private care option. Often, this provides additional hours of care over and above that sanctioned by the HSE for its clients but it also works with people who have not come to it through the HSE.
It is also putting significant focus on growing its live-in and overnight care options as well as expanding its offering in disability care.
Rates for care outside HSE-sanctioned hours run from €32 to €36 an hour upwards depending on where people are based and the type of care required. Clients, or whomever is funding their care, can claim tax relief on that bill at their marginal, or higher, income tax rate – cutting the actual cost by up to 40 per cent.
The carers get 40-50 per cent of that.
“There is a commitment from the sector, because of the agreement we have with the [HSE], to pay above the living wage”, which is €14.75 an hour. “So that’s what our caregivers will pay in the sector and in Dovida,” says Jennings.
While there was historically some variation between the rates the HSE paid private care providers and others in the sector, that has now been standardised, he says, helping to improve retention rates.
He says staff turnover has dropped from around 40 per cent a couple of years ago to 30 per cent last year in what is a tight labour market.
“It’s a real positive, but it’s hard and we have to maintain that,” he says. “I think if we can improve on our recruitment process in terms of responding to the candidate quicker, getting them through the process, getting them trained and supporting them – listening to them is imperative as well. And once we listen, we can support them, we have the best opportunity to retain them.”
Dovida is calling on Government to index-link HSE payments to providers to match annual increases in the living wage as well as to fund mileage payments to carers “to improve access for people living in more remote locations who are less likely to receive home support than people living in urban areas”.
It also wants the cap on working permits for people from outside the European Economic Area employed in homecare to be removed.
Under the work permit scheme, the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment requires that providers pay home carers minimum annual pay of at least €30,000. Based on a 39-hour working week, this is an hourly rate of pay of €14.79.
Minister for Employment Peter Burke recently announced a doubling of the number of permits available for those working in the homecare sector.
While many of those employed by private homecare companies are not Irish born, just 51 of its 3,800-odd staff hold such work permits. The others are legally resident in the State either because they come from other countries in the EEA, especially eastern Europe, or live here as students or with family who have been granted residence in the State.
Dovida is also growing by acquisition, having acquired two smaller home care operations around the State in each of the past two years, according to Horizon’s accounts.
Jennings is keen to see the business grow, but his mantra is “sustainability”.
“We have to make sure that our growth is done in a quality, safe manner because of the end user, the client. They are somewhat vulnerable in society. They may be on their own or they may have family who aren’t in the same community or location, so it is a real focus of ours.
“There’s an opportunity to grow in term of the HSE cohort, given the waiting lists, and there’s also the opportunity to grow on the private side. So the market is significant. But we have to make sure we are not busy fools going after everything and anything.
“Because if we take it on and we haven’t prepared properly, it is going to trip us up,” he says. “So yes, we do want to grow but we want to do it in the correct way.”
The focus on careful growth as well as the lack of any real entrants to the sector by new players are among the reasons Jennings and Dovida are among those calling loudest for regulation of a sector that many would already presume is tightly regulated.
The company’s policy document – its asks of Government – says regulation can ensure high standards of care and safeguarding of clients as well as ensuring all providers are held to those standards and sanctioned for noncompliance.
“The entire homecare provider sector, including private providers, the HSE and section 38/39 health agencies, must be subject to equal regulation, licensing, inspection and independent audit on a universal and consistent basis without exception,” it says.
Dovida, in its former life as Home Instead, has been calling for regulation for the past decade, as has State agency Hiqa – the Health Information and Quality Authority – which is responsible for safety and standards in healthcare.
In 2015 Ed Murphy, the original chief executive of the Irish business, feared it would take a big scandal in homecare to push government to introduce regulations for the sector. Despite the painfully slow progress, draft legislation has now been drawn up although suppliers say it needs further amendment to deliver what is required.
The sector’s other big ask is for a statutory right to care in the home for all adults – a kind of Fair Deal for homecare, mirroring the State subsidy in place for those requiring long-term nursing home care.
“We all know it’s only going one way, the demographics are going to double for over 65s in the next 10 years, over 85s as well. So, there’s a huge demand presently not to think about the future.
“We have to act, and we have to be ambitious and get excited about putting in a structure that is sustainable for all of us, because I believe it’s the most affordable way for all. But there are lots of variables involved, so I don’t underestimate it as well,” he says
The bottom line: “People want to remain at home and if they have the ability to remain at home, it is cheaper for the taxpayer [than hospital or nursing home care]. So I believe it’s a win-win.”
CV
Name Shane Jennings
Age 43
Position Chief executive, Dovida Ireland
Family Shane is married and has two young children
Hobbies A fan of most sports, with a particular fondness for rugby and soccer, these days most of his interests revolve around his family.
Something you might expect He’s a Leicester City fan, dating from his time in the city playing for Leicester Tigers.
Something that might surprise “Before I started playing professional sport, I wanted to be an architect – even though I can’t draw a straight line!”
