Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick East, Labour)

I move amendment No. 10:

In page 13, line 29, to delete "as it thinks appropriate" and substitute the following:

"based on whether there is a reasonable possibility that the person would not, but for the provision by or on behalf of the Executive of care services, be able satisfactorily to care for himself or herself or to have satisfactory care services provided otherwise,".

In some ways this refers to the previous amendment in Deputy Reilly's name in that I am seeking to establish where the bar is in terms of a person's qualification for the scheme. This section gives a whole list of the various things that will be looked at in terms of the care needs assessment, including cognitive ability, extent of orientation, degree of mobility to dress unaided, etc. However, it does not indicate what the level of ability under each of those headings must be for a person to qualify. In other words, we do not know what degree of mobility, for example, a person needs to have in order to qualify. While it lists the different things that will be looked at it does not indicate where the bar will be set and what level a person must reach in order to qualify.

Amendment No. 10 is the only one of the four in my name. I am arguing that instead of saying "as it thinks appropriate" we should say, "based on whether there is a reasonable possibility that the person would not, but for the provision by or on behalf of the Executive of care services, be able satisfactorily to care for himself or herself or to have satisfactory care services provided otherwise". In other words, I am trying to establish the criteria for a person to qualify under the various headings.

It is a major flaw in the Bill that we do not actually know where the care needs assessment will set the line. Again, this relates to my concern about the capping of the resource because I wonder whether as the resource is depleted a person will have to be more and more disabled or dependant in order to qualify. Will it mean that the type of people Deputy Connaughton was talking about earlier, for example, will not be included and also, perhaps, many of those people in nursing homes at the moment who do not have families to look after them? Such people would need a considerable amount of care if they had to live at home. The home help services, while being great aspirationally in terms of home help teams, packages, etc., within the HSE, in reality are often not there for the family concerned.

I am therefore trying to set some type of bar at which a person will qualify. My fear is that it will be dependent on the amount of money available, and if there is not too much money, a person will practically not be able to move anything him or herself in order to qualify. That means a great many families will find themselves in the position whereby they do not have any facility for their loved one. As I said earlier, it is very wrong that we force elderly people to worry about how they will be looked after and make them feel they are a burden on their families when the State should be providing for them. I want to get some sense of a standard that will apply across the system, which will not vary, or depend on the amount of money available at the time.

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