Martin Ferris (Kerry, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is an awful indictment of this State that people who are so vulnerable and who want to remain in their own areas and homes are being denied a proper home help service. It is a terrible indictment that 6,500 people are on the waiting list. An even bigger indictment is the amount of money, €6,000 each, spent to keep people in hospital and in valuable beds or in nursing homes at a cost of €1,048 when it would only cost €165 to keep them in their own homes. These individuals could be looked after at home if home help hours were available.

There is not a Deputy who has not experienced, with their constituents or within their own families, the tremendous value of home help to people who receive it. I have a great friend who is paralysed from the waist down. He is 86 years old. He has been paralysed for 12 years and he is in his own home with his wife. He has to be taken out of bed in the morning using a hoist and then washed and put in a wheelchair. He gets taken for a walk in his wheelchair with his wife. He is put back into bed in the evening. He gets a half hour of care in the morning and another half hour in the evening. He is very fortunate because special allowance is made for him and he gets care seven days a week. There are other people who get care five days a week, a half hour in the morning and a half hour in the evening, but there is nobody there for the weekend.

Home care is such a tremendous service and achieves savings for the State. If only the people in charge and who are responsible, by which I mean those in Government, would look at it in that light. I should not be surprised because the culture and ideology of this Government is not about caring, although it should be. The Minister of State should not miss the point Deputy Denis Naughten made regarding geography and home helps having to travel for half an hour to do half an hour's work and then having to travel back for another half hour. A small bit of tweaking in that regard would make a huge difference.

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