Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Ó Cuív. While we are on subhead B3, the senior alert scheme has been very successful. I see this year that €5.3 million has been allocated for it. Again, however, no more than in the case of the defibrillators, we could do much more with that money regarding the types of devices we are providing to older people. When we are connecting people to the Internet, we could provide them with a laptop or a smartphone, and combine monitoring and communication in the senior alert scheme.

I refer to providing mobility in this context, because, thankfully, older people today are not physically confined to the home. They are at the moment, sadly, because of Covid-19, but otherwise many older people are often outside. Having a device connected to a mobile network, in respect of an alarm or a fall, means that an alert can be triggered by someone in a field in the middle of nowhere, out in a park or out for a walk on the street, instead of the fixed scheme existing now. We could achieve much more by using the technology that exists, rather than using what is now old technology.