Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I commend the Rural Independents Alliance for putting down this motion this evening. All of us are conscious in all our constituencies of people who are waiting and trying to get home care packages, people waiting for home help hours and the fight and struggle that goes on. I am sure that it is the same everywhere, including for the Minister of State, that when one contacts whoever is sorting out those hours in the constituency, one is told that they have a few more hours available than was the case last year but demand has grown. This is a problem that we have. Demand keeps growing because our elderly population are, naturally, in need of some more care as more people fall into the category. It is not that we did not know it was going to happen. We have the statistics. There is a statistics office that knows the age of everybody and has a fair idea of the trends. Unfortunately, we do not seem to have planned for this or worked out how to resolve the problem.

I am always struck by the cost-benefit analysis of this matter. Money spent on home care packages or on providing home help to people is the best money that the Government could spend on the health service. First, it employs people at the coal face to do work and put money back into the community, usually the same community as the person who is getting the care. Second, it ensures that person will stay out of hospital and longer term care which is much more expensive for the public.

There were references to the privatisation of provision of elder care and home care packages. It is something I find happening all the time. I came across a person recently who was looking to have home help hours increased. They were told that they could be given so many hours a week but the levels had been cut the previous month and if they wanted to get their hours back to the same level, they would have to get a company to provide the service and they would have to pay for it themselves. That is well and good for some people but many people do not have the resources to do that. The Government should not allow a situation to develop where a package of care is set in place, and then to put pressure on people to pay for it, the hours are withdrawn forcing people to pay for it themselves. That is happening in too many cases across the country.

The Government must realise that money spent on elder care is the best spent money possible. Somewhere in the highest echelons of the HSE, someone needs to turn on the light and realise that if the money is spent on home care, it will save triple or four times that somewhere else. Unfortunately, that message is not getting through.

There was an announcement today on respite, which is not a dissimilar topic. RTÉ recently broadcast a "Prime Time" programme which exposed the position regarding respite care. It is a terrible indictment of this Government if this is the only way to get money to people in need is to have exposés on the matter on television with "Prime Time". We need to step up and ensure that the money is spent in the right place, and then it will be saved elsewhere.

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