Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank Sinn Féin for tabling this really important motion on this really important issue that unites this House. There is no division across the House regarding the need.

We need, however, to reflect on exactly what we are talking about. We have a very unusual health system in this country. It grew up through voluntary provision, often by religious orders. The State has been struggling for the past 50 years to build parts and bolt on bits, but we do not have a unified, comprehensive health system, which is available on the same basis for every citizen in every part of the country. It is time we did. There is an ad hoc-ery to health service delivery. We are spending countless billions of euro on it now, but we are not in full control either of the outcomes or the agents that are delivering those services. It is something I have been acutely aware of for a very long time.

In describing the issue, I am not saying that it is in any way easy to resolve. It is profoundly difficult but the issue of carers is something that we all understand acutely. In the model of supports that we provide in this country, families want to do best by the people they love and they need to have the full support of the State to do that. A range of facilities has been devised over time to do that and one of the most critical is providing families with respite. They need certainty about it and they need to be able to plan it. In industrial relations we talk now about the right to switch off but carers have no right to switch off, ever. Caring is 24-7; it is relentless. Carers do not have time to protest either. They have very little time to contact their local representatives and, therefore, it is really important that we provide the services they need without exhausting them further by having to campaign for basic requirements. As I said, certainty around the availability of respite is so important for carers. They can look forward to it, they know it is coming and for that to be taken away is really annoying.

It will not surprise either of the Ministers of State present, and I commend them both, that I want to raise the issue of Mulcahy House, which is part of St. Aidan's day services. I have dealt with St. Aidan's for decades. It provides fantastic services in north County Wexford. Mulcahy House was providing respite services for approximately 80 service users but it has been closed for three months for want of staff. The official statement from St. Aidan's services says that they are facing the full impact of the recruitment and retention issues being faced by other service users. This vital service that everybody, including St. Aidan's services themselves, recognise is critical cannot be provided. People who have booked dates in the coming weeks are now being told that respite is not available because they do not have the staff to run the service. The fear is that it will never be available again. It is just shocking. It really is shocking and it is cruel on top of everything else.

I ask the Ministers of States to see what can be done on the recruitment of staff issue. I raised it as strongly and passionately as I could last week during the debate on the Labour Party motion on our approach to recruitment. We know and can profile future need so let us prepare for that by having the staff available. If there are issues of pay, which clearly there are, with people who are working in such services moving into education or into other services that are better paid, let us resolve those issues once and for all. This country is very wealthy now. I wish I had control of the purse strings in such plentiful times. I did not but we can now resolve perennial issues such as respite care. We have the resources to do it if we have the drive to do it. It will mean a degree of co-ordination that does not exist right now, a degree of planning, and the creation of national pools. All of these things should be done now. They might not have instant returns but they will have medium- and long-term returns that will be vital for the provision of decent healthcare in this country. I ask the Ministers of State here present to think of the families adversely affected in north Wexford today because of the closure of Mulcahy House in St. Aidan's services and to try their best to provide a solution that gives them hope that their respite services will be replaced.

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