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

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for selecting this topic.

I seek a commitment from the Minister for Health to facilitate a right of access to the nursing home of their choice for older people in need of long-term residential care whose home address is on this side of the Border but whose nearest or preferred nursing home is situated north of the Border. Prior to the introduction of the fair deal scheme older people in need of residential care could take up unhindered residence in nursing home facilities in the Six Counties. This is an important issue for people in my constituency of Cavan-Monaghan, particularly for those from communities that do not just run along the Border strip but straddle it, just as they have straddled the inter-county lines over many generations.

Before the fair deal, subvention travelled with the older person. With the advent of the fair deal a partition descended once again in our midst, turning lifelong friends and neighbours away from each other and forcing older people, whose residence is located south of the Border, to look to often more distant locations from their home for residential care in their own county or in neighbouring counties. This is discriminatory and grossly unfair. It also ignores the important role these facilities north of the Border have had and could play again in helping to meet the ever growing demand of our ageing population.

There are excellent nursing homes in County Monaghan, both public and private, but we do not have sufficient capacity. However, the core issue is the right of choice and access, if preferred, to a nursing home that is closest to one's own home, family, extended family, friends and neighbours. This is not an unreasonable request. We must revisit the terms of the nursing homes support scheme, the fair deal, to provide for older people in the circumstances I have described, respecting their and their families' choice and wishes. Whatever the outcome of the referendum today in Britain and in the North, in this jurisdiction we should be lifting borders, not imposing them.

I appeal to the Minister to respect the rights and wishes of communities, families and older people in Border areas. They do not see their location as peripheral. They see only the hills, roads and the features of their area that go way beyond an artificial Border which has always failed to drive them apart from family, friends and neighbours in childhood, adolescence and adulthood. It should not drive them apart in their later and dependent years. I ask the Minister to do the right thing and not to offer excuses for inaction. People want and deserve voices in politics that are solution driven. Is the Minister, Deputy Harris, such a voice?

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