Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Yesterday, I met home helps in Cork. I am sure the Minister of State is familiar with many of the women to whom I spoke, as she probably knows them personally through her own contact with them in the constituency as well as her role in the Department. She knows as well as I do some of the issues and decisions facing them. One home help has been put in an awful position. She now has 15 minutes to visit the elderly lady she cares for because she has to visit another client with a certain timeframe. She can spend no more than that time with the lady. She raised the issue of mental health and it hit home with me. An elderly lady is living on her, isolated from one end of the day to the other, from one week to the next, from month to month and year to year, and the only contact she has is with her home help. That daily contact goes beyond the care she is given because she has someone to relate to and talk to, which keeps her in good mental as well as physical condition. That should not be underestimated.

While I acknowledge home helps are the Minister of State's responsibility, I am disappointed the senior Minister is not present to listen to the debate. He should be here because the senior Minister in the Department, as we witnessed during the primary care debacle over the past few weeks, ultimately calls the shots. It is a pity he is not here. While €1.7 million is being cut from the funding for home care packages and €8 million from home help packages, we are talking about people who are vulnerable in our society and not figures. The Minister and I share a constituency and we know many of the people who rely on home help services. She is aware of the value carers and home helps give to the most elderly and vulnerable people on the north side of Cork city. I cannot understand how she can stand over cuts of that nature. I am not being political because I am aware of her record in standing up for home helps in the past and that is why it is more puzzling that, given she has primary responsibility for this area, she can stand over cuts of this nature, despite a commitment in the programme for Government to increase services in this area. Perhaps, in her contribution, she will outline the reasons this commitment has been reversed.

I would like to refer to the personal nature of home help. I lost my father seven weeks ago today. He had motor neurone disease and he had a home help for the final two years of his life. The compassion this individual showed to our family was priceless; I cannot put a figure on it. The person came in every day and helped us to wash my Dad and change him as he was paralysed from the neck down. These tasks were emotionally draining for us as a family.

The home help came in and did it with a smile and a sense that it was done not because it was a job but because the person cared about it. At a time when we needed every support as a family, the home help, Sinéad, was a friend to my dad. Our family could never repay the kindness shown by the home helps to my dad in his final months.

When he was diagnosed, he had one wish, to be able to pass away peacefully at home. With his condition, the speed at which he would deteriorate and the fact he would need 24 hour care, seven days a week in his final months, we knew it would be impossible without the help and support of outside people such as the Irish Motor Neurone Disease Association, home helps and Marymount hospice. Only for those people supporting our family, we could not have granted our father his dying wish. That is what we are talking about when we talk about home helps. We are not talking about someone who puts on the kettle, sits down for five minutes and has a chat. We are talking about people who care for some of the most sick and vulnerable people in society. They do it with a smile and have done so for years for very little money or for nothing. They did so because they had a vocation and a passion for it. We are repaying them by cutting hours, giving them no security of income and by not honouring the contracts. It is a disgrace and I cannot get over the fact our society is leaving to fall by the wayside such a group of people with commitment, compassion and experience. We are not fighting for them. Every Deputy should fight on their behalf and there should be no opposition to the motion before the House.

I cannot get over the fact my family was able to grant my dad his final wish with the help of a home help but another family, facing the same challenges we faced, may not be able to grant a father or mother the dying wish to die in peace at home. That family may not be able to get the same care, attention and love we got from our home help because €8 million is being cut from the budget. How much will be cut next year or the year after? When is it enough? We are talking about people's lives and their dignity. It should be a right to remain in one's home. Every Government party Deputy needs to take a long look at himself or herself before pressing the button tomorrow night. Voting against the motion is condemning people to death. Many of these people will die of loneliness or isolation, and it is a disgrace. Every Deputy should be fighting on behalf of the most vulnerable in our society and standing up for the home helps and carers who look after them. The Minister of State and I will be relying on some of those people eventually. It would be silly to undervalue their contribution to society and it is not fair to them.

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