Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I concur with previous speakers in commending the emergency services for tackling the fire in Ballymun which, thankfully, did not lead to a loss of life.

I will speak about elder care or, I should say, the complete lack of it throughout the country, including the constituency I represent, Cork South-West. The elderly built this country. Now, when they need help from the State, they have to fight every inch of the way to receive care. Proof of this is the way the Government stands idly by as hundreds of the elderly are forced to travel to Belfast for cataract operations. For them, it is simply a case of travel Belfast or go blind. That is just one issue. Elder care services needs to be scrutinised by all of us in the Dáil. Years of empty promises have yielded nothing. The home help service being delivered is as bad as it was two years ago when I first raised the issue with the then Taoiseach, Deputy Enda Kenny, who said the Government would turn things around. Home helps go beyond the call of duty, but the joy they get from their jobs is diminishing quickly as visits are cut to 30 and 45 minutes, which means that they are in and out the door, thus preventing them from providing the necessary care and giving the eldery person the attention and respect he or she deserves. In many cases, home helps who have voluntarily done hours of extra work for the person receiving the service are being refused extra hours by the HSE, while it funds many private companies with questionable guidelines which have taken on staff from all over the world.

In the programme for Government, it was recognised that home help should be increased to seven days per week to include weekends and bank holidays where possible. According to what families have been telling me, though, that is not the reality in my constituency. Many elderly people have been forced into long-term care and put through the so-called fair deal scheme, which robs them of their savings, homes and, in many cases, burial money.

More than 55,000 people have been diagnosed with dementia, 4,000 of whom are in County Cork. Many of these are looked after in their own homes by members of their families. There are a number of Alzheimer's patients whose behaviour is challenging, but neither the community hospitals nor nursing homes have the staffing or resources to provide respite care for them, leaving exhausted families to care for them. There are only two dedicated respite beds for these challenging patients in the entire of west Cork, those being in Clonakilty Community Hospital, which can largely only service the Clonakilty area. West Cork has the largest elderly population, as shown in the census statistics.

I call on the Tánaiste to set in motion immediately a study to provide extra respite beds in community hospitals and nursing homes across west Cork for patients with dementia. I also call on him to instruct the HSE to start investing proper resources in the excellent home help service that is in place on the ground and whose carers have saved the State millions of euro over the years with little thanks. He should examine the issue of the respite service for the elderly in west Cork, which has been non-existent in many cases. Elderly care in west Cork leaves much to be desired.

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