Shane Cassells (Meath West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Towards the end of his report, Mr. Daly touched on the charges for the services being excluded under the nursing home support scheme. He outlined how it is explicit in what it provides, namely, basic care, bed and board, bedding and laundry but it does not include such basic things as newspapers, hairdressing, activities and transport. This is an issue I raised with the Ombudsman, Peter Tyndall when he was before the Committee on Public Petitions two weeks ago. He was talking about dealing with complaints from nursing homes and he touched on this specific issue because he said it was leading to the impoverishment of our elderly. He said that he saw situations where grandchildren were coming into nursing homes with more money in their pockets than the grandparents they were visiting and that was leading to an eroding of the autonomy of these people. He was looking at a case where they had maybe €7 per week to live on. I raised this with the Taoiseach on Tuesday and again he was kicking to touch saying that Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Jim Daly, was looking at it and so on. I ask Mr. Daly to comment on that in terms of the contract for care and what needs to be addressed.