Fiona O'Malley (Dún Laoghaire, Progressive Democrats)

A great public service was once again done by "Prime Time" in highlighting this issue. It focuses us on the treatment of the elderly within society. The situation has changed over the years. Long ago we revered the elderly in our community but now we seem to push them aside. This is evidenced by the busy activity of helplines established to aid elderly people. Some 50% of calls to the Senior Helpline are as a result of loneliness. This should force us all to look at what we can do in terms of responsibility. We need to ask whether we are talking to the elderly in our community rather than merely dealing with the obvious crisis of the treatment of those in nursing homes.

I welcome the changes that will take place and the fact that the Government has committed to putting the social services inspectorate on a statutory basis. The sooner it happens the better. I would welcome that.

There have been calls for new legislation but the existing legislation is sufficiently stringent if it were properly enforced. That is the bottom line. Regardless of the requirements or guidelines, the most important relationship an elderly individual will have in a nursing home is with the care workers who work with him or her. They should treat the elderly person with respect in their engagement with that elderly person but on the television programme we witnessed a man shouting at an elderly woman. That is terrifying and it is dreadful abuse of a very vulnerable woman. Regardless of the legislation we have in place, if an inappropriately qualified individual, in doing a job like that, is instilling terror in an elderly person it will not improve matters. Guidelines and stringent legislation are required but equally having appropriately skilled people is very important.

The Dáil has called for legislation to be enacted during this session but in that regard we are damned if we do and damned if we do not because the Government is criticised when legislation is rushed through the House. This is an important area and one that has not been highlighted just this week. We need to reflect properly on it and put good legislation on the Statute Book.

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