Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I compliment Deputy Tom Fleming on this excellent, well-researched and timely motion. I do not want to be repetitive, but I will repeat something that has been said by many Deputies in the debate. The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, IHREC, has emphasised that the availability of home care that is of a standard that avoids the need for residential care is essential in upholding older people's human rights. Unfortunately, resources have not been aligned with policy under this or the previous Government. Governments change, but officials continue the policy. Out of the total budget of €1.39 billion for older people's services in 2013, 72%, or €988 million, was spent on nursing home support schemes. This supported 22,361 people, approximately 4% of the population aged 65 years or over. It is a whopping figure. Only 14% of the budget, some €190 million, was spent on home help services, with a mere 9%, or €130 million, spent on home care packages. These are devastating figures. Any departmental official or Minister who stands over these needs to be pinched and woken up. They are not acceptable. This is a wrong and sad policy.

We are becoming an older population. This is a serious demographic situation that we will need to address. It is happening in front of our noses and other issues follow on from it. Since 2009, the number of people aged 65 years or over has increased by 21%. Imagine that. The number of people aged 80 years or over has increased by 30%. We are living longer, thank God, with modern medicine. Since 2009, funding for home help services declined by almost 12% from €211 million to €185 million. I could rest my case and say no more if anyone wanted to listen, but no one wants to listen. It is a scandal that the Minister of State is here on her own. There is not a Member on the Government benches, and only a few Members on the Opposition benches, for this debate on a serious matter. The startling reality of the demographic situation facing us is accepted by all sorts of expert groups that have examined this issue fairly and want us to address it. We are not doing so, though. That is sad.

I am preparing a Private Members' Bill on elder abuse, if the Minister of State is interested in listening rather than in reading her notes. Ulster Bank did some shocking research recently on continual elder abuse inside and, in some cases, outside the family home. I thank it for doing that. We often give out about the banks, but this is good research. It is frightening and needs to be addressed.

We have attack after attack. I am tired and weary of listening to the Tánaiste, backed up by the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, saying that they did not cut the headline rates. They did not, but they attacked them from all sides. We are like cows grazing under an electric fence in a field. They have attacked them. They have pulled the rug out from under them in every way. They have demoralised them. They have cut the telephone allowance. General practitioner practices have been cut back. District nurses are overrun with work. They have cut back home support teams. They have cut back everything. We listen to the Taoiseach and Tánaiste on Leaders' Questions saying people should go to the community welfare officer. They have taken away the community welfare officers from communities. One cannot find them now, at least not in south Tipperary. Deputy Healy is present. He will agree with me. They cannot be found because they have all been taken into a number of places. One must have an appointment to meet them whereas before they came to a village at a certain time every week and one could point people in need and difficult situations towards them. The community welfare officers want to help people but they have been taken back. It is the most regressive attack on elderly and vulnerable people that any Government has ever made since Ernest Blythe took the shilling off the old age pension back in the time of the Cumann na nGaedhal Government. All areas have been cut.

I salute what the Carers Association does. I wear its badge with pride day in, day out, 365 days per year. A centre manager, Councillor Richie Molloy from Clonmel, is coming up tomorrow with Dr. Caitriona Crowe and Professor Eamon O'Shea, who have set up a dementia service in Tipperary, to testify to the Committee on Health and children. They have done excellent work in a pilot project. They are waiting for the Minister of State to meet them. I have written to her. She has promised to visit them. I hope she will. The last time she visited St. Michael's in Clonmel, we did not have a good outcome, but at least she visited. I ask her please to go down and see what they do. They are doing tremendous work and they need to be supported. They are in a pilot project, ready to roll out in September, but they have not got any indication from the Minister of State or her Department whether they will be allowed to continue. Their five steps project is vital work for the most vulnerable people. They are coming up tomorrow to testify to the Committee on Health and Children. The Minister of State will probably not be there, but her officials will be. I hope she listens to them because Dr. Crowe and her team are doing powerful work. Dr. Crowe also did powerful work in St. Michael's before the Government closed it and pulled the shutters down on it. "To hell or to Connacht" was the old adage. The Government told them: "To hell or to Kilkenny." It sent them all off to Kilkenny and told them there would be beds there for them. There are no beds there for mental health patients. Kilkenny is full, out the door. There are no services either. Sin é an scéal. The Minister of State is not listening. She does not want to listen.

Those are the areas to which I hope this motion will bring some attention, but by the look of things, the Government will not have a vote tonight. It is easy to know because its Members have all gone to their respective summer parties. It is an insult that there is no one other than the Minister of State present on the Government benches, that is, besides the sometimes Ceann Comhairle and want-to-be Taoiseach, tonight's Acting Chairman, Deputy Durkan, who is normally jumping in to stop me from talking or telling me that my time is up, I am out of order or something, but who tonight-----

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