Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Equally, the Government's policies are opposite. One thing that is important for a person at home is the telephone, but the Government has taken away the telephone allowance. It has decided to cut home help hours and it has decided not to fund public health nurses.

Moreover, the Government has decided not to bring forward supports in the primary care setting that would allow people to stay at home. On top of that, in this legislation, which amounts to a shameless U-turn, the Minister is asking Members to endorse the cutting of the eligibility threshold to €500 per week for an individual or €900 per week for a couple. A point regarding the criteria that always was brought forward is that people were treated as individuals in the context of this issue. Why have the limits been set at €500 per person but at €900 for a couple? This is another area about which the Minister previously made a song and dance. My difficulty with all this is that it is an attack on older people that drives a coach and four through the Minister's acclaimed policy of universality. It will have an impact on the quality of life of older people and if people could die in 2008 because the eligibility threshold had been set at €1,400 per week the same could happen if one reduces the eligibility criteria to those being proposed in this Bill.

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