Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle for selecting this issue for discussion. It is an important issue both nationally and locally.

I was appalled recently at a health board meeting when I was informed that in County Mayo, there will now be a review of home help hours. As soon as I heard that, I said to the officials that a review means there will be cuts. I have since read in the newspapers that they are now deciding how carers should look after someone, how much time they can spend with those they look after and how while they are being asked to do an impossible job, they will be timed by the health services. We are not dealing with animals - we are dealing with people - and they cannot be timed.

How can a person in need of a home help be treated like this? This is the lowest blow this Government has struck since it came into office. There is no doubt the recent cutbacks have been hurtful and severe but this is the lowest of the low. I am surprised Fianna Fáil would do this to the most vulnerable in society, those who need help most.

I would not mind but home helps save the State a huge amount. If it was not for those who come into people's homes to give them a bit of support and backup, they would need to be in full-time care and would cost the State much more. Home help is the greatest scheme ever introduced. It has worked well but timing home helps - how fast they can get someone's breakfast and clean up their house - is inhuman. I am surprised any Minister, any Government or any politician of any party could stand over this and allow the HSE to do it.

I am saying to the Government tonight that this will be fought every step of the way. In my own county of Mayo, there is talk that they will take away 50,000 home help hours. We are a broad constituency, the third largest county in the country, with rural areas where people are very scattered. They depend on the home help service.

The person who contacted me is looked after by a home help who works beyond the call of duty. On one occasion, the home help came in when she was off duty. She gets tea for this person and painted the house and did not want to be paid for it; she wanted to help. The person, however, was delighted to have the home help hours.

This is an outrageous attack on the elderly and I am surprised the Government and the Fianna Fáil Party are letting this happen. I say shame on the Minister for Health and Children, because this is the lowest blow of all. I say to the HSE that surely to God there must be another way for it to make savings. It is not long since it was spending money in my county on conferences to make sure the budget for the year was spent. I say shame on them to the HSE and the Minister. They should stay away from the home helps, the old, the weak and the sick. If they must make cuts, they better make them somewhere else.

If the Government can find money for the banks and for everyone else, we must find it for the home helps because this is the greatest attack I have seen by Fianna Fáil and the Green Party on rural life, rural people and particularly the elderly. All I can say is shame on Fianna Fáil, it has gone to the lowest of the low.

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