Luke Flanagan (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent)

I congratulate Deputy Donnelly on his phenomenal speech, I do not know how one follows it. As the Deputy said, the State is there if needs be when one is on one's knees and needs help. My experience when I needed help was not that great either. Many people who come to my office express the same feeling, particularly with regard to domiciliary care allowance and similar allowances. When I was a local authority member a mother asked me why she had to go to a hospital to prove her son's arm had not grown back in order to continue to claim the allowance she was receiving. This sounds daft but apparently it was normal. When one hears a story such as this, particularly with regard to domiciliary care allowance, and one hears about delays and the inability of officials to put together a form on which one can explain what one wants, one feels useless because having dealt with umpteen similar other issues over the past year one wonders whether anyone cares. This is why this Private Members' motion is brilliant; it gives me a chance to express my frustrations about the fact there is no way to deal with this issue as this is a way of dealing with it.

The Minister stated there would be a review. This is great if there really is a proper review and things change and it does not take forever. However, at this stage I must say the cynicism has been beaten into me. I look forward to the day it disappears and I hope the Government will be the one to do it. I keep hearing about reviews on everything and usually the review is about kicking the can down the road and delaying doing something about an issue. Certain aspects such as the form will be reviewed as it is fairly obvious it must be changed and it should take only a millisecond. Why does one need to review the 38 week waiting period? It is fairly obvious it is too long.

The only reason that 52% of applicants successfully appeal is because the attitude of the State is that one is considered some type of a con artist and one is guilty until one is proven innocent. This is not the way to treat people. It is not the way to treat people who are in the fullest of health and full of energy and who do not have all of these burdens and problems. I have two children and they are a challenge, but they do not face the same challenges as the children about whom we are speaking. Parents worry, probably to the extent it hurts them physically and mentally, about anything going wrong or happening to their children. I find it very hard to get my head around what it would do to me if my child was in the situation these people's children are in and I went to the State to be kicked around the place. It is astonishing. One does not need to review this; one needs to get rid of it.

One can blame the system all one wants, but people in the system who obviously do not care, and have a bit of a prejudice against those who might be getting something off the State because they pick up their pay packet and think their money is going to them, need to be kicked out of the system. I met them when I was on the dole. I was dirt when I went to sign on. This needs to be got rid of from the system. The review needs to happen ASAP and it is fairly obvious what should come out of it. All of this needs to be changed and everything in the motion needs to be done. The State needs to be fair to the people involved because they are the best people in the country.

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