Séamus Healy (Tipperary South, Independent)

I wish to record my support for this motion, particularly with regard to the inspection of nursing homes. Inspections are vitally important and the inspection regime should be statutorily based. Furthermore, inspection reports should be freely and openly available to the public.

One important issue which relates to this debate is the lack of sufficient long-stay beds for the elderly in the public system. Excellent work is being done in the public system, for example, in places like St. Patrick's Hospital in Cashel, St. Anthony's unit in Clonmel, and the district hospitals in Tipperary, Carrick-on-Suir and Clogheen in my constituency, but there are not enough beds. As a consequence, elderly people experience enormous delays in gaining access to the beds that are available. The result is that some people die before they ever gain admission to these facilities and many more are forced to go into the private nursing home system only to find there are enormous costs involved.

Let us take the case of an individual whose only income is a social welfare payment, who does not own his own home but rents a house from the local authority and has no savings or investments. The maximum subvention that individual will receive in the former South Eastern Health Board area is €250 per week. The minimum charge in a nursing home in the same area is €550 per week. If the individual concerned receives a social welfare payment of €200, he is short €100 per week, with no way of making up the balance, except to ask his relations and friends to give him a so-called dig out, similar to that received by the Taoiseach in 1993 and 1994. However, if the individual's friends are not in a position to give him a dig out, as it were, his family will have to scrimp and scrape to ensure he is looked after in a private nursing home. In that context, it is vitally important that additional public nursing home long-stay beds for the elderly are made available.

Another related issue concerns elderly people being looked after in their own homes — the Government amendment refers to this issue. Unfortunately, however, the home help service has been ravaged and reduced by the Government. The payment of carer's allowances is also an enormously difficult area. People are waiting up to six months for approval of an application for a carer's allowance. Where appeals are lodged, people are waiting for 12 months for a final decision. I ask the Minister to examine this area without delay.

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