Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left) | Oireachtas source

It is a fact that there have been more people on hospital trolleys during the watch of this Government and the so-called days of recovery than under the darkest hours of its predecessor. The counter-motion put forward by the Government today tries, in essence, to blame citizens for getting older and causing the crisis. It is utterly ludicrous. There are people on trolleys because they cannot get beds. It does not take a genius to work that one out. One reason they cannot get beds is that there are not enough of them, but a further critically important factor is that there is nowhere for people to go when their hospital treatment is finished.

There are two reasons for this. First is the essential privatisation of care of the elderly and nursing home provision in the State. It is now big business to be profited from and the care of the elderly is a secondary factor. The other reason is the vicious cut in home help hours and the failure to provide adequate care to allow people to remain in their homes. What is the consequence of that? Every day there are crisis meetings in all of our major hospitals to see who they can get out. It is not dictated by medical needs of patients but by who can be got out to free up beds for people later on. That means staff are under pressure to send people home without adequate care. I know of cases where there was pressure to send home people who were on oxygen without the apparatus being there to administer and support their needs. We all know the situation from our own areas.

We have all received representations from people whose parents have been sent to nursing homes far outside their areas. If they do not have cars, they might not be able to visit. Private nursing homes can dictate what goes. They are there to make money, not to be concerned about the needs of those in their care.

Deputy Joan Collins will not be coming, so Deputy Wallace and I will share the remaining time, if that is okay.

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