Patricia Ryan (Kildare South, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Labour Party for tabling this motion and welcome the opportunity to speak on it and give it my full support. As Sinn Féin’s spokesperson for older people, the health and well-being of our senior citizens is very close to my heart, as the Minister of State will be aware. I firmly believe our elderly deserve the very best care possible in order that they can enjoy their golden years with dignity and comfort. However, the continued failure of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to adequately invest in home care, public nursing capacity and step-down community care has left dignity and comfort by the wayside, with disastrous consequences for our elderly citizens. It has had consequences such as home-care packages being granted without the staff to deliver them, urgently needed home adaptations left with no budget to complete them and a community care system that is not adequately staffed. Our elderly deserve better.

There are over 5,000 people on waiting lists for home care. Even those lucky enough to have it cannot be guaranteed they will receive their fully allocation of hours because there are no staff. Each undelivered home-care package is one more older person suffering unnecessarily and one more family forced to shoulder the burden of care. It is all down to the failure of this Government and its predecessors. The Government needs to adequately invest in these services.

Nearly 3 million HSE home-care hours were lost in 2023. That is absolutely disgraceful. The Minister of State knows well that pay levels and lack of pay parity in the home-care sector are the root cause of the recruitment and retention crisis, yet the budget did nothing to resolve this. Deputy Sherlock spoke about his colleague in Kildare South and all the issues in the constituency. I am well aware of those issues because they come to my door.

Sinn Féin’s alternative budget put forward a solution that would provide basic and sufficient standards not only to recruit staff but also to incentivise staff to remain and even train staff. It would make home care an attractive career choice with progression prospects. Home-care workers deserve a living wage and travel expenses, especially in rural Ireland. They travel for ages to get to one client. They need to have some travel expenses. Who bears the brunt of this? It is not members of the Government but older people and their families who are stepping in to look after older people. That includes older people who are sick themselves. An elderly lady in my constituency was approved for a full home-care package but there were no staff to deliver it. This left her elderly husband, a cancer sufferer, with no alternative but to try to tend to her personal care needs. That is totally unacceptable. She ended up with bedsores and had to be brought into hospital to be looked after because the home care was not adequate.

What if home care is not an option and a nursing home place is the best solution? There are no beds, thanks to more Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael failures. These are public and political choices. There are 1,000 fewer public nursing home beds today than we had in 2014. The bed capacity is simply not in place. The over-reliance on private beds is also very concerning. Some 40% of all private nursing home beds - more than 10,000 beds - are owned by global investment funds. Sinn Féin wants to redress that balance. Our alternative budget does so by making provision for over 600 more beds in public nursing homes. It would increase public nursing home capacity and prioritise direct public provision in the sector, with additional funding to private nursing homes pending the increase in public beds coming on stream.

Joined-up thinking is necessary here. Significant investment in the support and care systems for our older people is paramount to future-proof the quality and availability of that care. Otherwise, we face a disaster for older generations with ever-increasing waiting lists and suffering for older citizens. Some 15% of our population are over 65 years. This figure is predicted to rise to 26% by 2050. Urgent and decisive action is not only needed; it is mandatory for future generations. We are all getting older and we must not be left to face the disastrous consequences of this Government’s continuing failure to properly address falling bed capacity, the staff recruitment and retention crisis, lost home-care hours and huge waiting lists for home care.

Sinn Féin has specified investment of €100 million in older persons' services. That is €100 million more than the sum allocated by the Government. People see that difference. Sinn Féin would fund an additional 600 public nursing home beds; invest in community beds for recovery and convalescence to take pressure off hospitals; fund a living wage and travel expenses initiative to help recruit more home-care workers; make home care more career progression orientated to encourage people to stay in the sector; provide training opportunities; provide more home-care and community care supports to allow our older citizens to live independently in their own homes and communities for as long as possible; and double funding for the housing adaptation grant.

That is absolutely necessary.

The Government has dropped the ball in respect of care. A Sinn Féin government would put an end to that. I say to the Minister of State that we need to do better.

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