Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Ó Caoláin for tabling the motion and I appreciate the opportunity to contribute to the debate. In any discussion on home help the constant line we get back from the public is that the home help service is value for money. The home help service saves the State by allowing people to stay in their own communities for longer. Of all the schemes the State has introduced, this one probably represents the best value for money. In recent weeks we have been inundated with calls and letters regarding people who have suffered. I received a letter this morning in respect of an elderly woman living at home who is without the use of both her legs, is wheelchair bound and has the use of only one arm. I will read one paragraph into the record of the House:

A few weeks ago the H.S.E. in its wisdom ... decided to cut those few hours a week so now we have a situation where the home help are supposed to get [the person's relative] up out of her bed, dress her, look after her toilet needs, get breakfast, prepare her lunch, look after the fire and heating needs for the day, from 11.45 a.m. to 1.00 p.m. with an extra 15 minutes [on] Tuesday and Friday to facilitate a shower. Now how in the name of God can you or the H.S.E. explain to me or any other person [how] it is possible to get a totally invalided person up out of the bed, undress her, get into the shower, wash, dry and dress her again, do her hair and leave her in any sort of comfort for the rest of the day. If you or the H.S.E. can do that then I think you should enter that home help person into the Guinness Book Of Records.

Various Deputies have spoken about what can be done. Everybody understands the need for tightening of budgets, etc. The previous speaker spoke about having heart. People accept that the home help service is providing great value for money. If we all start from the point that the home help service is providing excellent value for money and keeping people in their homes for longer giving them a sense of dignity, we should ring-fence the home help budget at the start of the year and not budge from it. It should not be attacked in any shape or form because it is the best value the HSE will get in this year. It should be ring-fenced.

Elderly people are concerned at newspaper reports about home help hours. They constantly worry whether this might be the last month, or the last Christmas in their own home because they might no longer have the service to keep them at home. The Government and the people making the decisions must accept that as a given. Throughout the Western world every other avenue has been tried in dealing with elderly people, but this is a system that is working. Whenever there is a need for cutbacks in the HSE the first to be affected are home help hours. Across the board they have been taking away a quarter of an hour here or half an hour there. Some 99% of people will say that those on the front line providing home help services are excellent people, who take the job very seriously and take great pride in the ability to keep an elderly person in his or her own home. Whatever about other aspects of the health budget, the home help service must be sacrosanct and must be protected at all costs.

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