Paddy McHugh (Galway East, Independent)

After the 1997 election the Fianna Fáil and Progressive Democrats parties published a joint programme for Government, An Action Programme for the Millennium. No doubt they viewed this as an exciting event. It is always good to use words like "action"; it creates the illusion of movement and progress. The document states:

Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats in Government recognise that our older people have helped to build up the country into what it is today. It was their sacrifices, their taxes and their efforts which have helped to create the economic prosperity which we now enjoy. In the true spirit of caring, we propose to repay their efforts.

I want to deal with the way the Government went about repaying the efforts of the elderly, especially those elderly who need health care and assistance. This applies in particular to the elderly whose freedom of movement is restricted, whose independence is stunted, those who use wheelchairs to gain some mobility. These are some of the people who need personal assistants, carers, and so on who are employed within the health sector. Many such jobs are held by community employment scheme workers and the Government gave a solemn commitment to mainstream them, but it reneged on this. That is how it repaid elderly wheelchair users.

One has to ask why the Government let those elderly wheelchair users down. The simple answer has to be that they are seen as an easy touch. The Government believes they will not rock the boat, that they are too weak to make any noise. I attended a recent meeting of wheelchair users in Tuam who had come from the city and county of Galway and County Mayo. They feel betrayed and that they are being treated as second class citizens. They have no inhibitions about going on the streets and protesting in order to get their rights. Apart from the hardship involved in this, it will be a lovely illustration to the rest of Europe during our European Presidency to see how the island of saints and scholars looks after its elderly, especially the elderly with disabilities.

In fairness to these elderly wheelchair users, they put forward two options: that the Government either honours the commitment to mainstream, or else provides the resourses to implement the findings of the Harmon-Bruton report. This report was commissioned by the Department of Health and Children in 2000 with the specific task of identifying the deficiencies in staffing in a number of organisations, including the Irish Wheelchair Association. This Government-commissioned report found that the Irish Wheelchair Association in the Western Health Board region was down 21 staff members from what was required to provide adequate services. In 2003 the Department made €100,000 available to the Western Health Board to implement the findings of the report. The Irish Wheelchair Association's share was €9,000. This would not provide 21% of one job, let alone the 21 jobs required. The Minister of State should either honour his commitment to streamline or else provide adequate funding.

Last Thursday's The Irish Times referred to the Tánaiste as saying that a Progressive Democrats conference heard that many improvements in services for older people could be implemented with little or no extra costs, if the views of older people themselves are taken fully into account. This statement gives rise to many questions. Why does the deputy leader of the Government have to go to a small party conference to discover such a fact? Who are her advisers and why are they not informing her of this? It begs the question of what kind of interaction exists between different Departments, including that of Health and Children which has responsibility for the elderly, that they had not already discovered this.

Having had the benefit of her party conference deliberation, when will the Tánaiste, as deputy leader of the Government, introduce the improvements in services for older people that her party conference discovered could be implemented at little or no cost? I ask her to share her new-found knowledge with her Government colleagues to ensure that whoever has responsibility in this area can have those cost-neutral improvements implemented. Will the Tánaiste outline to the House what are these improvements?

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