John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)

I certainly hope so. If we followed Green policies, we would have a much healthier society in general. Perhaps the Minister of State would agree. The consequence of that is people would live longer. Seán Barrett attended a meeting of the Joint Committee on Health and Children and spoke about this aspect in the context of Ireland. It is an interesting subject in that as many people emigrated from Ireland in the 1950s, we have fewer elderly people to care for at this stage. We have, in effect, what is known as a demographic bounce. The position could be much worse than it is.

I do not believe that Leas Cross was an isolated case. There are many instances I highlighted in the House previously, one being a nursing home in Cabra, which has since closed, where the conditions were appalling. Elderly people there were hungry, people who wanted extra food were given slices of bread which were already buttered and it was as if these people were simply commodities. There has been a commodification of the health service. Based on the cases I have heard of, some of the elderly are treated with less dignity than that shown to the animals in Dublin Zoo. That is unacceptable and is the reason we urgently require an inspectorate.

I agree with a point made by Deputy Twomey who said that certain sections of the Bill were quite difficult to understand in terms of how the Health Service Executive determines subvention applications. We need to examine this in greater detail on Committee Stage. There is a threshold of principal residence value above which subvention may be refused. The figure given is €500,000 for the Dublin area and €300,000 elsewhere. I live on a street in Ringsend, which is in Dublin 4 but is sometimes referred to as Dublin 4B because it is not part of the leafy suburbs. Even though it is not regarded as the wealthiest area in Dublin, cottages near where I live are being sold for approximately €450,000. It is a matter of time before small cottages in the Ringsend area are sold for €500,000. We need to examine this matter in the context of the property boom in Dublin because we will quickly find that people on very modest incomes are above the threshold for Dublin.

The pattern of society could be changed by developments of this nature. If one is forced to sell one's house, the idea of inheritance — passing on one's property to one's children — will disappear. The changes in society will place additional pressure on people. Those who want to buy houses are under enormous pressure. This aspect of the Bill will need to be examined in greater detail on Committee Stage.

I will not say much else about the subject of this Bill because I have spoken in previous debates about the conditions in nursing homes and I do not want to repeat myself. When the Minister of State, Deputy Seán Power, establishes the various task forces and review groups to which he referred in his speech, I hope he will take a long-term view of this issue, the consequences of which for society are profound.

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