Fiona O'Loughlin (Kildare South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Last night I attended the AGM of the Kildare branch of the Alzheimer Society of Ireland. I met wonderful men and women who were supporting their wives, husbands and parents in a home setting. It suits them to be in a familiar setting. Some of the families receive support, while some do not. Speaking to the outgoing chairperson, Margaret Nolan, who has been a very effective chairperson of the organisation for 14 years, reminded me of the many challenges families faced in providing care for people with dementia and how many thousands of families there were throughout the country who were selflessly caring for older relatives with very little help from the Government. Without doubt, staying at home with the appropriate assistance and support from the State was and is the preferred option of the older people whose relatives I met last night and those to whom I speak in my constituency day after day, week after week. They deserve dignity, respect and a choice as to where they want to live out the last years of their lives.

Not only is the most humane solution to offer decent, relevant home care packages, but it also offers the best value for money for the State coffers. The home care package introduced by Fianna Fáil in 2006 provided for the provision of the necessary financial support and help for the families who availed of it. However, with the ageing population, the demand for packages is increasing steadily. There is no doubt that when we look at the ESRI's figures which show the increased demand for home care packages, we must be ready to meet that demand. It appears that geography is dictating whether families receive home care packages. There are six CHO areas in which there is absolutely no one on the waiting list, yet in CHO 7 which covers Kildare and west Wicklow there are 992 people awaiting the provision of home support, the third highest number in the regions, with Laois not being far behind.

At a public meeting I held last year the most common query from the very large crowd was about home care packages. Some attendees were very distressed and older people who spoke about how difficult life was as a carer with no Government support. They also queried the length of time it took to process applications for carer's allowance. That is one of the most common queries I receive. People's lives and health, physical, mental and emotional, are being impacted on by the backlog and delays in the processing system. We believe funding allocated to older people to enable them to remain at home provides the best value and the fairest, most dignified result for older people. We need to make real progress in dealing with this issue.

I thank my colleague, Deputy Butler, for bringing forward the motion.

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