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

I thank Sinn Féin, especially Deputy Cullinane, who is an excellent public representative and spokesperson on health issues for Sinn Féin. This is a timely motion. The one thing that people who provide care for older and vulnerable people in their homes do not want is lip service from the Government. The most frightening statistic is that over the past three years, there have been 52,000 applications for carer's allowance with 24,000 of them being refused. This means that almost one in every two applications is refused.

In my office in County Kerry, I deal with many people who want to care for older people in their homes. They are saving the State, the taxpayer and all of us thousands of euro every week by providing that care and service. Where would any one of us like to be if we were older, incapacitated or in need? The one place that everybody would rather be than in any other place in the world is in their own house, in their own corner of the world and in their own bed at night. Whatever bed we get into in any part of the world, the best bed to get into is one's own, if it is at all possible to do so. We have to acknowledge that. By putting hoops and obstacles in the way of the people who are looking to provide this care, we are doing a great disservice to older people, vulnerable people and to the State. In other words, we are shooting ourselves in the foot.

What is the alternative? I am grateful to the nursing homes in County Kerry, which are excellent. I am grateful to nursing homes because there are cases of people who are beyond being able to be cared for at home and they need a level of care that is only available in a nursing home or perhaps in a long-stay bed in a community hospital. That is more expensive and there are only so many places in those nursing homes, so that is why we have to try to streamline the processing application and grant people the different allowances that they need to achieve what they want, which is to take care of a loved person in their own house, in their own time.

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