Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

While I will be opposing both sections 11 and 12, I will deal with section 11 first. When the nursing homes support scheme was introduced, Sinn Féin and others expressed concern that it removed the universal eligibility for a place in a public nursing home as provided for under the Health Act 1970 and this Bill reinforces the position. This is a serious matter because it is drawing major distinctions between certain sets of circumstances that may present in the life of any citizen. The statutory eligibility to a bed in a public nursing home was provided for in the aforementioned 1970 Act but was never vindicated in terms of the provision of resources to make available those beds. This led to a huge reliance on the private nursing home sector, something which continues to a worrying extent. Even in respect of the ever-reducing number of public nursing home beds, I note that with the advent of the accepted standards being imposed by the Health Information and Quality Authority, HIQA, rather than actually carrying out the necessary alterations, renovations and so on, it is becoming evident that to meet that measurement, there is an ongoing and critical reduction in the capacity of the public nursing home network. This is an extremely serious matter and further evidence of this came to light in recent weeks in my constituency. I believe the situation must change. One cannot continue to have an ever-contracting provision of public nursing home care. Moreover, worrying potential developments arise from the statement at the end of last week by the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, to the effect that means testing is to be introduced with regard to home care. That certainly will have consequences and one will find that where the State currently is saved significant sums of money by the heroic and at times herculean efforts of family and friends to allow for older people to remain where they are happiest and most wish to be, that is, in their homes, this situation will be challenged by these further measures now signalled. There is no evidence of any intent on the part of the Minister or the Government to address seriously the ever-decreasing capacity in respect of public nursing home provision.

That is a very serious matter and accordingly I am opposing section 11.

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