John Perry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fine Gael)

I thank Deputy Crawford for sharing time. This is an important Bill. Deputy Crawford spoke about carers. The increase in respite grants is welcome, as is the removal of the anomaly whereby a person caring for more than two people did not receive the grant in respect of each care recipient. It was about time that anomaly was removed and it is significant that it has been done.

The means disregard for carer's allowance will result in an additional 1,000 new carers qualifying for payments. The number of carers in receipt of carer's allowance will increase from 23,500 in 2004 to 24,500 in 2005. However, it is believed that there are 50,000 full-time carers, which means that some 25,000 of them will get nothing. Given the major issue that is currently being debated and the cost of yesterday's Supreme Court judgment as regards nursing home inmates, and the cost to the State as regards retrospective payments, the invaluable work done by carers who look after the elderly in their own homes for so little is put in context.

I hope the Minister will look carefully at the recommendations on giving people assistance to care for their parents and grandparents in their homes by ensuring proper facilities and grants are put in place. It would be a good investment. Regrettably, elderly people were in receipt of very little in the way of grants for essential modifications to their homes. When one sees so many people in long-term care, it is regrettable that the State has been so mean-spirited about helping them as regards essential ground floor modifications, bathroom facilities etc. I know from my experience as a former member of a local authority, that the difficulty presented by the matching funds stipulation prevented councils from implementing such initiatives. Given the Supreme Court judgment, however, I have no doubt that care of the aged is now very much part of the political landscape. As regards subvention, the issue yesterday was contract beds. The issue from now on will demand close scrutiny of the rights to pensions, subventions and maintenance in tandem with payments by family members.

Yesterday, the Tánaiste said that given the demographics, care of the aged will be an increasing priority for the foreseeable future, with some 12,000 additional people in this category within the next two years. I appeal to Government to look imaginatively at its care for the aged programme with particular emphasis on people's own homes where much of the work can effectively be done.

The issue of medical cards is also significant. The number of people with medical cards continues to drop, despite promises to have the number extended to an extra 200,000 people. The Taoiseach said yesterday that doctor-only medical cards would not be available until April 2005 and that 30,000 people who were supposed to receive the traditional medical card would also have to wait. That is not good enough. There is a great number of people who need medical attention and who just cannot go to the doctor. At least the GP card system is a start and will alleviate the cost of the GP, but we should take prescription costs for the pharmacy into account. Regrettably, there are many people with young children who are caught in the income trap. We are in a two tier economy, where people are working very hard, paying for the education of their families and still just cannot get any assistance from the State. It is quite extraordinary that it is taking so long to issue the 30,000 medical cards.

From my experience as a Deputy for Sligo-Leitrim, I know the level of applications that are being sent in and thrown out. There is an audit for medical cards every 18 months and there is an increasing number of people being taken off the list. That is wrong. There is no sense of concern for the position in which some people find themselves. The audit is based on gross income, but there is a huge difference between a gross and a net salary. Regrettably, many of the thresholds for medical entitlements are based on gross income. People who are paying for the education of their family and need two incomes to do so, still do not qualify for real benefits based on their gross salary. There is pressure on many people who genuinely feel the medical card system needs to be examined. Up to 1,000 people in Sligo should have qualified for the traditional medical card, yet those cards have not been issued. If we include the doctor-only medical card, that would mean up to 5,000 cards should be issued in Sligo. I call on the Minister to issue those cards as quickly as possible as there is pressure on people who genuinely need to go to the doctor and who cannot afford to do so.

The poverty statistics are quite startling. A recent EU report revealed that Irish women are at greater risk of poverty than their counterparts in any other EU member state. A total of 23% of Irish women are at risk of poverty. The CSO recently published a report which estimated that approximately 120,000 children and over 23,000 lone parent households are living in consistent poverty. To put this into context, these are children who may not have a winter coat and who cannot afford to have a meal with meat, chicken or fish every second day. Ireland is among those member states with a greater gap between the rich and poor. This country is undoubtedly a two-tier economy, where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Over 50,000 households are on waiting lists for social housing according to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. In the city of Sligo, there are over 500 people on a waiting list for local authority housing. The number is similar for those waiting for housing from the county council. The estimated number of homeless households remains high at 3,773 in 2002, in comparison to 3,743 in 1999. When we had the money during the boom, the homeless were effectively ignored and the position worsened.

Another recent study found that the number of children living in housing that is overcrowded, damp, in disrepair and in poor neighbourhoods has more than doubled between 1991 and 2002. As many as 243,000 children in 94,000 households are at risk of experiencing such detrimental living conditions. Children of lone parents are far more likely to experience nearly all of the housing problems cited. One third of lone parent families live in local authority housing compared with just 7% of couples with children. The impact of these issues on child welfare is manifest in their increased risk of psychological and general health and behavioural problems, all of which impact on their education, health and sense of well-being.

I am delighted to speak on this very important Bill. The Minister is well aware of the issues and I acknowledge that he has worked on the savage 16 cuts. I am quite happy that he is getting into his brief and I hope he will work on some of the major difficulties facing the welfare society in the country at this time.

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