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

Growing old in modern Ireland and particularly in west Cork is extremely difficult, to say the least, with people on massive waiting lists even though many are only seeking minor procedures. Many thousands more are waiting months for carer's allowance for caring for a loved one or a neighbour. Tens of thousands are waiting for eye surgery, mainly cataract surgery, which is a 15-minute procedure, but cannot have it carried out in the Republic before they go blind. However, this is not the subject of my question.

The home help service has saved the State millions of euro in the past. The workers, mainly women, have been the most unrecognised heroines of our time. Every Member of the Dáil knows they go far beyond the call of duty for the people to whom they are assigned. They do this without a second thought. The State must examine how it has treated the home help women. Time after time, we hear in the Dáil that home helps cannot be found to carry out the work and that new home helps are being sought. These statements are completely misleading the people. Many elderly people desperately need extra hours. Some have a home help service for a half hour in the morning five days per week, but people in west Cork are told that they will not get extra hours on Saturdays and Sundays as the service cannot get the workers. We know differently. All the workers who have done such an excellent job through the years are desperately seeking extra hours, but they are not given them. Either we are being misled in the Dáil or the home help service is being run shambolically and requires urgent change to ensure the millions of euro will be allocated to the elderly and the home helps who provide the service.

The insulting way the Government has treated the elderly and the home help women is enough to prompt a national inquiry, and I shudder to think what the conclusion of that inquiry would be. Time and again we have been given different spins in the Dáil about the home help service, but Deputies know what is happening on the ground. Home help workers who have done their best for the State for many years are being starved of home help hours and the elderly and others who need extra hours in many cases are being left home alone from Friday morning until Monday morning. This is scandalous, to say the least. Last Tuesday, the Taoiseach spoke about the home help service in reply to questions. He said the Government cannot keep pouring extra money into the service without reviewing where it is going. The public, the home help women and the elderly would like to ask the Government where the money has gone because it did not get to the people concerned. How can a Taoiseach state that millions of euro in additional funding is being put into the service when the people on the ground are not getting a proper service and the home helps are not being allocated extra hours?

It is time to stop the spin on this issue. For once, instead of listening to spin doctors, will the Tánaiste listen to the elderly and the people working on the front line on how they have been treated? Will a proper home help service be rolled out to those who need and deliver the service in the way it should be, to stop millions of euro being squandered needlessly and not getting to those who desperately need the service? Will the Tánaiste request that a survey be carried out of home help workers to ask them how many hours they are working and whether they will accept extra hours if they are offered? Those are serious questions that must be asked of every person who delivers a brilliant service.

See this speech in context