Jack Wall (Kildare South, Labour)

While some speakers are not that happy the Minister of State is present, I am delighted because many of the issues I will mention involve his constituency as well as mine. Perhaps by mentioning them we can move towards resolving them. One of the major problems we have regarding care for the elderly is the cut in home help hours. One must be careful when discussing the figures used regarding the Progressive Democrats aspect of the Government. However, replies received from the Minister for Health and Children on a number of occasions state that the cut in home help hours in Kildare is approximately 27%.

In many cases the only human contact the person in receipt of home help has from one end of the week to the other is with the home help provider. If we further decrease those visiting hours, we will put the recipients under greater stress and strain and the demand for care in nursing homes and geriatric hospitals will increase. I cannot figure out how on the one hand we state we can reduce the hours because of the greater efficiency of the system, while on the other hand we state there is a greater demand for hours.

In the system, a person is allocated one or two hours of home help per day. The people in receipt of the service value it greatly as they love to see someone visiting and relating to them what went on during the day. If we concentrate on the business aspect of this, instead of providing two hours' home help and allowing people to get involved in the local community through home help, we will reduce it to an allocation of one hour and the home help provider will leave after that time regardless of the situation.

I supported the SIPTU demonstrations on this matter. It must be addressed if we are serious about keeping senior citizens in their homes. The way society is evolving means a major decrease in the number of senior citizens who have a loved one at home. In almost all cases, the person who used to care for them is now out working. Those senior citizens are isolated. We are fooling ourselves unless we decide to take action instead of decreasing home help and creating a greater demand for nursing homes, geriatric hospitals and accident and emergency departments.

For some time I have argued for the need to re-evaluate the nursing home subvention. There is no way a person's home should be used in the means test for enhanced subvention. It is against the ethos in this country of owing a home to pass on to one's loved ones after spending 30 or 40 years obtaining it. This is the only means test in which I am aware that the home is used. It is a disgrace that we allow it to happen. I ask the Minister of State to remove this measure in the new legislation to come before the House in order that we return the family home to senior citizens and that we do not say to them that we will put them into a nursing home and that their homes will no longer be their kingdoms. It is a disgrace that after a lifetime of hard work and putting the country and their families together, the one possession they have is effectively no longer their own because we use it as a charge against enhanced subvention.

It would be better to provide more wards in geriatric hospitals such as St. Vincent's Hospital in Athy. It is a wonderful facility and campus. If we examine the figures, the centre built in Maynooth cost approximately €5.5 million while the Department of Health and Children returned to the Exchequer €136 million that was not used last year. Consider what that money would do for the provision of extra wards in places such as Athy, Maynooth and Leixlip. Such facilities would allow people to enter for respite care and return home knowing there was a place they could go, while all the time they would be safe in the knowledge that their homes were still their kingdoms and would not be taken from them. If the home is not removed from the means test, the Minister of State will meet major opposition to this Bill, certainly from me. In all other social welfare means tests, the first line is that the home is not rated as means.

Will the Minister of State examine the home help situation and review the forthcoming legislation to allow the family home to be protected? We can made some dramatic improvements to ensure senior citizens are still a priority and valued in the community. If we take away their homes and contact, we isolate them and leave them at the mercy of those who prey upon such people living in rural communities.

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