Mark Wall (Kildare South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am sure that the Minister of State knows of many great communities in Cork. One of the great communities I am aware of is in Kildare, that being, the community of Ballyteague, Allenwood, Kilmeage, Robertstown and Milltown. It is a great community that comes together. Unfortunately, it is now more than three months since the Allenwood daycare centre closed its doors in Ballyteague GFC. This closure has had an immense impact on the older people who attend the centre. According to their family members, they are regressing and deteriorating. For many attendees, this centre was their social lifeline and a way of staying connected with their neighbours, community and friends. This move definitely flies in the face of Sláintecare. We should be keeping people in their communities and keeping them close to their vital community connections, friends and services rather than closing centres such as the Allenwood daycare centre in Ballyteague GFC. I listened to my local radio station, KFM, and some testimonies of those using the centre. One was from Gabrielle Dempsey who is 80 years young. She said she missed the cups of tea and the chats. She said it was heartbreaking that people could not go back.

The community feels let down by the Government and the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. They are disheartened and feel there is a process of bureaucracy that their families are suffering under. From speaking to people on the ground, the impact of the closure goes beyond the attendees. It also affects the family members, wives, husbands and family carers of those who use the centre. I have been informed that, in the three months since the centre closed, four service users have gone to nursing homes and two have been hospitalised.

I thank Karen Gorey and many members of the community, including Frank Moran, who have continued to advocate on this matter. I acknowledge, as I am sure the Minister of State will tell me in his reply, that the HSE has organised places for people to attend another daycare centre in Kildare town four days a week. Through the work that other public representatives and I have done, the HSE will also provide transport for those people. Thirteen of those using the Ballyteague centre have accepted but five have not. Those five are a worry for the community, but so are the 13 who have accepted. The community centre in Allenwood in Ballyteague GFC was a lifeline for all the people using it. It was where they met their friends and, as Gabrielle Dempsey said, where they had a cup of tea and a chat, but it has been taken away from them. For the life of us, we cannot understand why it cannot be reopened. I have dealt with the HSE and thanked it for its replies. It tells me that the new centre in Killmeage will be completed in June, but the problem is these older people cannot wait until June. The Minister of State will be aware of the detrimental impact that loneliness can have on older people, given the lack of social contact and contact with friends. The interviews on KFM were all about people who use the centre asking the family carers if they could go back to the centre.

That is what was said, time and time again on my local radio station. They do not want to go to Kildare town. They want to go back to where they know best, to their familiar surroundings where they can meet their friends, have that cup of tea, have the chat. That was in Ballyteague GFC. I cannot understand for the life of me why it cannot be reopened. I hope the Minister of State will bring some good news today.

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