Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I never correct Deputies but I do think it is important to reiterate that the Constitution does not say that a woman’s place is in the home. I will leave it there.

This week and this past month, I have been advocating for two ladies of 85 years who are entitled and eligible for a home care support package. One lady is in receipt of some hours five days a week, but she is now entitled to and due seven-day care. Her family are currently looking after her and we cannot get an increase in the service from five days to seven. That same issue applies to the next lady who is also 85 years.

These are women who, within the meaning of the Constitution, provided care in the home for their families. Their families are struggling to do the same.

We announce with great gusto in this House that we are going to throw money at many services and we are going to do this, but it does not happen. It is the delivery we need to focus on and we are not able to deliver the services. The HSE in CHO 5 has covered off its part by advertising or putting it out to private providers once a week, every week since 2 February, looking for someone to cover these hours. It just gets back a "No". There is no onus on it to recruit. As a matter of fact, those in the CHO tell me the recruitment ban is affecting them, when HSE CEO tells me that recruitment ban does not trickle down to home care support services. Somebody has it wrong.

When I was elected to this House four years ago, the Minister of State will remember a conversation we had with the Ceann Comhairle in which I said there was no joined-up thinking with education and the provision of services going forward. That was four yeas ago and the list has grown exponentially. We have more than 274 children with no service in the CDNT network in New Ross. There is no occupational therapy being given, there is no speech and language therapy being given, and there is no dietician. It is such a failure. We are going backwards at all times.

If we want to do something meaningful, we should not be spending €20 million on ambiguity, which is what this referendum will deliver regardless. The wording is ambiguous. Why not invoke and ratify Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities? Why not give them the rights if we want to do something meaningful? If we want to spend €20 million, make it meaningful and remove the actual means testing for these carers who are in the home. We do not need wording in the Constitution. It does not matter because most of the carers are women. Nothing will change. That is the difference. There are loads of meaningful measures we need to join the dots on. There is no point sending a family a letter to say they are eligible for a home care support package and that they meet the criteria but we have nobody to deliver it. It does not say that in the letter. It just says that the resources to meet the requirement are not there, instead of saying we have not fixed that problem in four years, or in the four years I have been a TD, because that is what it means.

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