Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish to start off by registering my concern at the closure of beds in Killarney Community Hospital. Its capacity has gone from 38 beds to 23 beds, a loss of 15 beds. Bed numbers at St. Columbanus public nursing home have dropped from 92 to 65, a loss of 27 beds, including bed losses on the Fuschia ward which caters for patients with dementia. These are savage cuts. A total of 42 beds have been taken out of these hospitals in Killarney and I wish to register my concern about that. What is the Government's plan in respect of people who get sick in the Killarney area? Is it telling them not to get sick? Is it telling people who are getting old and must go into a public nursing home not to get old? The Government stated it would increase bed capacity around the country but it is closing beds in Killarney. What is it going to do about this issue? How is it going to cater for people who get sick?

I wish to highlight on behalf of parents and families of adult children with intellectual disabilities that they have been badly let down since the start of the virus pandemic. Very few daycare centre services are open. Some of them open for two or three hours on one day per week, but that is not good enough. A woman named Mary who lives in County Kerry has a 20-year-old son named Conor. He is a big strong boy who needs routine and was doing very well in the service he was attending but it has closed. She works in the public sector. Her husband, who works for himself, has hardly worked since March because he has been minding his intellectually impaired son. They have three other children but cannot bring them anywhere. The children must make do and get to matches and other events by themselves.

They need financial assistance to hire trained people to help them out. Otherwise, many of these parents will be unable to continue under this pressure. Their mental health is suffering.

It is the same with families who have a partner or husband, mother or father, with dementia. I refer to all the services of the day-care centres that the buses used to bring them to, such as Rockmount in Kilgarvan, four or five days a week. Such centres are all closed. There were wonderful highly trained people running all these places - Rathmore, Scartaglin, Castleisland and Knocknagashel. The closure of these centres placed savage pressure on husbands and wives and sons and daughters. The Government needs to provide financial assistance for the families.

We need to talk about home help. Old people who wanted to stay in their homes as long as possible are not getting the home help they should get. This is putting more pressure on our hospitals and nursing homes by not providing more home help for them to stay in their homes longer. That could happen if the services were provided for them. I ask the Taoiseach and the Minister for Health to do something about these issues that I am raising.

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