Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I welcome the witnesses. I know Mr. Bond from the great work he is doing in Dundalk and the Great Northern Haven, which is an example of excellent technology use in a community that lives as independently as they do down there. It is very worthwhile and I believe it is a model for all future housing for older people. I would also like to say that I have been concerned about all of these issues for many years. My particular concern is that the problem with the housing adaptation grant as I understand it, is that it depends on what the local authority budget actually is.

The problem with the housing adaptation grant, as I understand it, is that it depends on what the local authority budget actually is. It is proportional to funding that comes from the local authority which the State quite often matches. In County Louth we found that we were about €1 million less than we should have been about a year ago. The reason was that the economics of the council were significantly challenged by properties and land bought at the height of the boom that had become worthless, for which the loans had to be serviced. On the point the witness is making about the housing adaptation grant being universally available, we should change the fact that councils have to give funding at all. Let the State fund it entirely. Older people suffer when the council budget does not include them in their list of needs. We found that people would be waiting a year to get their grant. The people who were getting it were those who were most ill, for example with cancer or significant heart disease, and people who would have been in institutional care. There is a huge job of work to be done there.

I feel extremely strongly that fair deal should only be used for high-dependency patients. Our society should exist in such a way that people only go into a nursing home when they are high-dependency patients and are practically bed-bound. People should be able to be live in their communities and have their housing adapted as their needs develop. If they need to move from a home they might go into what used to be called sheltered housing - I do not know what the correct in-phrase is for that now - where they can live independently but where a nurse or community worker comes in to see if Johnny is okay and if Mary took her tablets or whatever. We need to make sure that people stay in their community as long as possible and that we support them in doing so.

Yesterday, I had a call from a lady whose mother had been looking after her father. Both parents are in their 80s and the mother unfortunately had a very serious fall. She is now in an acute hospital and there is nobody to look after the father. He is independent in that he can live at home but he needs to be physically moved because he is in a wheelchair. Both of them could end up in long-term care if the system is not in place to look after them. I know the home care packages are being significantly increased. We should establish a principle of citizens living independently in the home, with a housing adaptation grant to physically look after them and the home care packages to meet their bodily needs in terms of care, to keep them out of these nursing homes. We have about 21,000 or 22,000 people in nursing homes. A lot of them, to my knowledge, have a very poor life expectancy once they go in there. The life expectancy is much longer if they live in the community. That is a fact. The care is much better in the community; I believe that is a fact, too.

My wonderful constituency covers bits of counties Louth and Meath. I find that a constituent in County Louth can get a specially adapted wheelchair in their home or nursing home if they need it. However, a constituent in County Meath will never get one in their nursing home but will get it in their private home. There are significant disadvantages depending on what county one lives in. The care and support that is needed to maintain people in their homes is not universal across all of our administrations.

The points the witnesses have made have been very helpful to me. I agree with what they are saying, and what they are saying is what I believe myself. By their campaigning, their research and by being here today, they encourage all of us to fight a better fight. I am probably the youngest person here today and, thank God, I am very mobile. We all need to think about this as we get older. We are going to live longer. Most people born today are going to be 100 when they eventually say goodbye. Imagine how powerful that would be for Deputies in 20 or 30 years time. It is about caring for people, being aware and driving the agenda, not standing back. We must fight the bureaucracy.

Getting through that damn bureaucracy is the biggest problem people have to face. It changes from county to county. I found that the Department had loads of money available, certainly for the housing adaptation grant, but councils were not applying for it. Although I do not have the response to hand, I tabled a parliamentary question seeking a comparison of the funding for housing adaptation grants given to all local authorities. It is worth looking at that because some counties really fast-track the money they provide while others do not, which is not acceptable.