Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Senator Marie-Louise O’Donnell started off on a high note. I was fascinated by her description of those who have reached a certain point in their lives when they could dispense with wisdom. That is the type of later life experience I want and she wants too. Thankfully, there are still some people with some bit of joy in their hearts.

Having listened to the most recent speakers, however, I must admit I am not certain I want to get to that stage in life at all. If that is what people see as what it will be like in later life, it is quite worrying. We must deal in facts. Of course, when one looks to the future, one has to have aspirations. Facts are important as well, however. For example, there are 575,000 people over 65 in this country. Of those, 4%, 23,000 people, are in nursing homes. Up to 50,000 of them are in receipt of home help. It might not be 24-hour care but they are in receipt of it. Up to 13,600 people are in receipt of home-care packages, which is an enhanced home-care provision. Every time I talk about psychiatric units, psychiatrists tell me we are not there yet. I am never certain where there is. I am never certain that when we get there, should we be there at all. Surely, it will change and we should be open to change. Members know the majority of older people lead happy and fulfilled lives.

I have said many times that I am charged on three different fronts. In the context of mental health, I am charged with closing down big institutions and bringing people out of them. Senator Ó Murchú is involved in one area with me in this. When it comes to disabilities, I am also charged with ensuring people come out of institutions. However, when I addressed a conference on nursing homes, I made it clear that it would appear to me that I am charged with putting older people into nursing homes. I have no intention of doing that. Later life is about much more than dependency and so forth. We now have a single assessment tool which means it is quite difficult to qualify for the fair deal scheme to go into long-stay care. The evidence of that is that people used to live for three years in a nursing home setting. Now, they are living for half of that time and it tends to be more for end-of-life, high-dependency care. That is a good development.

I know I do not want to end my days in a nursing home. I most definitely do not want to end my days in a single room at the end of a corridor that lives up to HIQA standards. I want to live in circumstances that are appropriate to my needs. I am concerned the focus of this discussion is that it will all end in tears and we are all doomed. It is about more than that and we should aspire to more than that.

When I am calling for more resources to be put into this sector, we need to stop talking about age. Senator Marie-Louise O’Donnell gave the example of 99 year olds living independently, perfectly happy and with no supports. However, there are 40 year olds who need home help. It should be more about needs rather than age. That would change our vision. What would I do if I were a member of a new Government starting out and could determine what would happen in this area? I believe we should have a new ministry for primary and social care, separate and independent from health. If one looks at the list of what Members said older people need, I have very little responsibility for many of things included on it. The telephone allowance, safety at home, alarms, carer’s allowance, prescription charges, all have nothing to do with me. These are all delivered by other Departments in a different way and with a different focus. Accordingly, how can one have can have joined-up thinking, as Senator Paul Bradford demanded? Surely, it could be done if there was one Department with responsibility. We must start to think how we can do this better. The housing adaptation grants are the responsibility of the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. If I told the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government that the €22 million for the grant should be my responsibility, I can imagine the answer I would get. We must have a more co-ordinated, more cohesive and more visionary approach to dealing with our aging population.

For the past four years, the Government has been doing its very best to ensure the country did not go down the tubes. It was about maintaining the services as they were. We have a little more flexibility now, which is why we are putting more money into home helps and home-care packages. We should not assume, however, that we know what is best for other people. Senator Mary Ann O’Brien spoke about how she wants to be able to make decisions for herself when she reaches 85 years of age. Just today, the Dáil concluded its deliberations on the Report and Final Stages of the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Bill 2013.