Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I commend Deputy O'Dea on this Bill, which took 18 months to prepare. Deputies are sick of me talking about silos in government. This is one area where they are most apparent. The Department of Health is the lead Department in this scheme but the Departments of Social Protection and Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government are also involved. I got very frustrated listening to the Minister of State read her script and it was a script because it is not how she feels. She wants a six-month delay but many of the fair deal cases I deal with involve people who get a call to be told their relative needs to be moved from a general hospital but because there are no step-down facilities or there is a shortage of beds in step-down facilities, they are being presented with the unachievable task of getting that person out and dealt with. They do not have six months. They are lucky to get six days in some cases and they are putting themselves in that situation to deal with the rules in the fair deal scheme for assets and income with very little independent advice and information available. That is why the Members of this House are so expert on the fair deal scheme because we are the port of call for dealing with it. Families do not have six months.

The home care packages are non-existent. Someone looking for home help, maybe in an emergency, will not get it from the middle of September on because the budget has been allocated to current hours. Last year we found that it took until the end of November until the extra allocation that was given last July filtered down into the system and we were in a position to get extra home help hours for new clients, never mind existing clients or an expansion of the existing clients. The Government cannot say we have a proper home care system when people are ringing and begging for 45 minutes of home help a day. That is not a proper home care system in any way. It is not structured or planned. It needs to be examined. Those people who are in a queue for home help and cannot get enough time do not have six months.

There are 21-week delays for considering a carer's application. Most initial applications are turned down and have to go into the appeals process which takes approximately 18 months. If we are serious about encouraging people to remain in their homes we will deal with that. The Department of Social Protection will face up to its responsibilities to carers and particularly to emergency carers. Where people need care at relatively short notice there should be a provision.

The rules around the fair deal urgently need to be reviewed because Deputy O'Loughlin is right; when it was introduced in 2009 and 2010 it made a substantial impact as we can see from the volume of our case work. In the past 18 months I have noticed blockages in the system that were not previously there.

The rules around assets and farmland do not reflect the way society is run. Farmland cannot be sold at a minute's notice. It cannot be sold if a family is told to move their relative to a nursing home within a week. It may go back generations and an older person will not get rid of that land. Some consideration has to be given to the value of farmland. Similarly, consideration has to be given to people who are self-employed and have spent their lives building up business and assets only to be asked to make that decision quickly for him or herself or a family member. As a country and a government, in the permanent sense, we do not understand or value home care or keeping people in their homes. We talk about it but we do not have the systems and procedures in place to allow people remain in their homes at short notice or at times of crisis.

As for the idea of a further six months to enable the Minister of State to review the scheme, I have no doubt of her personal commitment to this but the system does not get it and does not want to get it. I have been ten years in this House this year and in every one of those years we have been dealing with problems with home help and fair deal and these wonderful mysterious home care packages. There is more chance of seeing sun in Ireland in July than of a home care package because I have rarely if ever seen one. Let us take the opportunity Deputy O'Dea's Bill presents and say we will do this. I have only now noticed that Brendan Courtney is in the Public Gallery. He has articulated the frustration and desperation of thousands of families who were not in a position to do that. He has articulated what we deal with every day. Let not another year pass when home help will finish in September through a lack of resources, especially not in a year when the Minister of State will not be allowed to propose a Supplementary Estimate because of the new expenditure rules. Let us take this seriously for once and for all and say that in 2017 as a republic we initiated a care system based on families that is responsible and respectful.

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