Seán Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)

I fully support the principle behind what the Minister is trying to achieve. However, a hospice is not similar to a nursing homes or private hospital. The hospice movement allows people to spend the last days of their lives in a different atmosphere. Patients do not spend long periods in hospices, unfortunately, and they know their days are numbered. Therefore, the more local the hospice, the better. It is important that patients remain in their own environment, visited by friends from their own locality. Those qualities of the hospice movement should be protected. Therefore, I fail to see why the Minister has imposed a minimum size, as though a hospice were a commercial enterprise similar to a private hospital. Health Service Executive approval should be sufficient to protect the purpose of the tax break.

The tax breaks should be project based. This is the point being made by the Deputies for Roscommon and Mayo. In my own area, the Blackrock Hospice is regarded as a project. People whose relatives have died in the hospice have an opportunity to give something back to it. Tomorrow is Daffodil Day. The lifting of the restrictions proposed by the Minister would be a wonderful present from the House to the hospice movement.

See this speech in context