Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for being here. This Topical Issue matter is practically self-explanatory. For the past number of weeks I have been making representations on behalf of some constituents of mine on the matter of home help hours and so on. In fairness the Department has come back and sanctioned hours and stuff but the issue is that we do not have staff to fill those hours.

This takes me on to particular incidents and I spent two and a half hours being bounced around Departments yesterday while trying to find somebody who is accountable or responsible or who makes the decisions when it comes to elderly care in the home. I was talking to a family who has a parent in their 90s and they have been told that the number of incontinence pants they use on their parents have been reduced to two per day. I found that highly insulting and degrading for this family and my fear is if it is happening to one family is it happening to others? I did not want to raise it as a Topical Issue matter because of the fact that it is nice to pick up a phone and tell someone this is wrong and ask to get it sorted out. However, as I said I was stonewalled all day yesterday trying to get a response on this.

I have details on this horrible individual case that I will supply to the Minister of State but I want to highlight the fact that somebody from outside this House will have picked this up this evening. Hopefully whoever is responsible for making these decisions can reverse them. We are in here and people are under the perception that we are in the protection of the Chamber or whatever. We all go home and if we are lucky enough to have parents we look forward to seeing them. Surely when you come to the latter stages of your life people would have respect and empathy for these elderly people. I cannot figure out how this individual or collective body has made a decision to cut the likes of a basic necessity and limit it over a possible cost.

I know the Minister of State will not be able to give me a direct answer but I want to make her aware of this. All of us here are expected to know everything that is going on in our constituencies and in the country but we do not. The Minister of State needs to be informed about it and that is why I am informing her that I am afraid because another family asked me not to complain. That makes it even more serious because they are doing it through fear now. If there is fear of cutting back the number of incontinence pants for our elderly then our system is going backwards. I wanted to raise this with the Minister of State so that hopefully the powers that be who are responsible for these moves will reverse it. Hopefully this precedent will never be set again.

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