John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)

My Department has funded and operated the scheme of community support for older people since mid-2002. Grant aid provided under this scheme allows for the installation of socially monitored personal alert systems and other items of home security and has supported more than 100,000 older people in recent years. This scheme was reintroduced last October after being suspended for a period while my Department carried out a review of its operation. That review is now complete and I hope to be in a position to publish the report before the end of this month, once I have received the input of other relevant Departments and organisations working with older people.

My Department is also at an advanced stage in finalising arrangements for the implementation of several innovations to the scheme to address matters raised in the review. The revised scheme will seek to streamline its operation in order to make it easier for community groups to access grant support and to broaden coverage to ensure older people who are unable to provide this equipment from their own resources have access to grant aid.

Even with the suspension of the scheme in 2009, 432 community groups received total funds of more than €2.1 million in 2009 with 6,523 older persons being provided with security equipment. The vast majority of these received grant support for the installation of socially monitored alert systems. I have made arrangements to keep the existing scheme open and my Department is accepting applications for grant support. The arrangement will continue until such time as revised arrangements are in place. Information on the grants paid is updated monthly on my Department's website at www.pobail.ie.

On a broader front, Government policy is to support older people to live in dignity and independence in their own homes and communities for as long as possible. To underpin this commitment, the Government has created the Office for Older People to support the Minster of State with responsibility for older people and health promotion to bring a more co-ordinated approach to issues relating to older people across the range of Departments and agencies. In particular, the Minister of State is developing a new national positive ageing strategy in respect of which my Department is having an input.

Responsibility for ensuring that older people can live independently and securely in their own homes, through the delivery of the necessary services, is spread across several Departments and State agencies, including the Garda Síochána and the Health Service Executive, as well as the Department of Social and Family affairs and the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. With respect to my own Department, our focus is on assisting older people through ensuring community organisations and volunteering are supported in order to address gaps in service delivery, where this is best done via local responses, and to ensure older people are included in local activities and community life.

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