Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick East, Labour)

That is far from clear. If he is the joint owner of the property, perhaps he may be protected in some way. However, if the property belonged to his mother and he did not have joint ownership rights, for example if she had a number of sons and daughters and they all had equal rights under the Family Home Protection Act 1976, then it is far from clear what kind of rights he would have. That is of real concern. We have always said in this country that the family home is exempt from any kind of pressure when it comes to paying for services. It is ironic that foreign-owned property may not have a role in this at all, yet the family home is to be brought into the equation.

It is clear, from the mathematics done on this by my colleague, Deputy Tuffy, that a person with a mid-sized home and income will be paying for this, while the person at the bottom of the pile will be paying even more. In that sense, we are transferring resources from people who have less money to people who have more. We have very serious concerns about that.

The IFA and other farming organisations are particularly concerned that there is no cap on land. The 15% cap on the family home does not apply to land. The farm must be transferred five years before the death of the person concerned, and this is causing very serious concerns about the family farm and the viability of handing on the farm from one generation to the next. I hope the Minister addresses that issue, which was brought to my attention by Deputy Sherlock.

The Labour Party is not happy with a wide variety of issues in this Bill. We can address them by tabling amendments, and many of those amendments will relate to issues raised in the submission by Age Action Ireland and the questions raised by the Irish Senior Citizens Parliament. These issues are related to equality and fairness and are of concern to people in that age category. We had the potential to bring in a fair Bill that would address the concerns of families that are currently paying money that they cannot afford to nursing homes. We all felt it was a good idea to bring in a Bill that would address those difficulties, but this Bill does not address the four core issues identified by the Labour Party.

The first of these issues is the removal of rights under the Health Acts of the 1970s, which treat all people fairly. We should have a universal system of health care that treats all people on the basis of need, not on the basis of ability to pay. The second issue is the fact that for the first time, a means test will be applied to the family home for the provision of care to our elderly citizens. The third issue is related to the fact that the assessment may well leave out a lot of people who have no option but to be in a nursing home. The fourth and possibly the most important issue is the fact that the Bill is resource capped. In other words, whenever we run out of money, health services are slashed. An example of this was the abolition of the universal access to a medical card for the over 70s, which created a huge furore and brought thousands of senior citizens onto the streets of Dublin. While the Minister changed her mind to some extent due to the pressure of public opinion and raised the threshold for qualification, she still removed the principle of a free medical card for all over 70s. Another example was the decision to defer the introduction of the cervical cancer vaccine, for the sake of less than €10 million per annum. There are many other examples across the health service and the economy in general.

The issue of resource capping is not related to some general principle. Resource capping is a real concern because while this legislation may appear to solve problems for many families, in fact, when the money runs out people will be told they cannot have it. People have already experienced cuts in home help hours, physiotherapy and other support services.

We are not happy with this legislation, which is unfair to our senior citizens. I hope we will be able to amend it significantly, but at this point it is likely that the Labour Party will be voting against the Bill on Second Stage, unless we receive reassurances on the issues I have raised when the Minister replies to the debate.

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