Michael Lowry (Tipperary North, Independent)
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Caring for the elderly in our communities is both a duty and a privilege. Providing an older person with the support he or she needs for both physical and emotional well-being gives that person a sense of worth. During the Covid period, we got a sharp wake-up call on the importance of how we care for our older generation. As the number of deaths of elderly men and women increased on a daily basis, the magnitude of their value was brought into sharp focus. Their loss was enormous. The Covid pandemic left a lasting mark on our society, particularly our elderly. People are living longer and this increase in longevity means we must plan for the future. We must meet older people's needs and ensure they can live contentedly.

There has been a significant number of improvements over the years in ensuring older people receive the health services, care and support they require in their golden years. However, worrying gaps remain in the complete provision of all-round elderly care. As all elected Members know, supports such as home help and home care packages are struggling due to a lack of personnel to deliver them. At present, there are 4,800 older people sanctioned and funded for home help assistance who have no immediate prospect of support. Daycare centres, meals on wheels, nursing home respite care and basic health services within communities are invaluable for our older generation. However, countless elderly people are denied access to those services. Public nursing home places and step-down facilities to assist in recovery from a hospital stay are crucial to making life easier, safer and happier for our senior citizens. Yet, only a fraction of those who need them can access those vital supports. Often, their only option is to rely on family. This can be an onerous task for families and it demands total commitment. Carers' invaluable 24-7 work can go unseen. Without their selfless commitment, we would undoubtedly face an unprecedented crisis. As the Minister knows, our regional Independent group places huge importance on the role of carers. Our efforts have already brought about an increase in the income disregard for carer's allowance. In this budget, we are seeking a further increase in the income threshold, working towards the full abolition of the means test for carer's allowance in due course.

It is said that the measure of a country's greatness is how well it cares for its most vulnerable populations. Few are more vulnerable than our older people. There is much we can do to improve and enrich their lives. The Minister for Health, in these budget negotiations, requires an adequate budget to deal and cope with these issues. The Government has a moral obligation to plan ahead and resource the inevitable increase in demand.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. We are now very much in a phase where not only is the number of people living in our country growing, which is a great gift to the ability of our economy to grow and our society to grow and flourish, we are also seeing more people who are older and have the level of care need to which the Deputy referred. Growing life expectancy in our country - the growing length of life many of us have to look forward to - is unreservedly and positively a very good thing but it brings with it important consequences from a policy point of view that we are now beginning to experience particularly within our healthcare system.

In terms of what we are doing generally in this regard, we have put in place a commission on care, which is preparing a report for the Government on the effectiveness and adequacy of the healthcare supports for our elderly, conscious that they will grow in numbers in the years ahead and that they deserve the support we all want to give them. Regarding the here and now and what we are doing to help people year by year, the total level of spending currently going into old persons' services is approximately €3 billion. That is an increase of €349 million from the budget that went before that. I will give one example that helps to translate that figure into what it tangibly means for older people and those who love them and want to see them get the care they deserve. A total of 24.3 million hours of home care will be delivered in Ireland this year, ensuring that around 60,000 of our older citizens get the support they need and deserve within their own homes. It is fair to say that when it comes to providing supports, we continue to experience difficulties in getting and keeping the people we need to provide that level of home care support. That, in turn, feeds into the point the Deputy made regarding the waiting times people face to access that support in the first place. The Minister for Health will continue to look at how we can tackle this issue. We have seen a really big increase in funding for that in recent years.

I will end where I began by noting that our life expectancy is growing. Being able to live, work, contribute to our country and experience the benefits of longer life is unreservedly positive. However, it brings with it important policy consequences that we are dealing with budget to budget. The commission on care is the Government's effort to have a more strategic approach to this matter, which will define what our country looks like in the decades ahead.

Michael Lowry (Tipperary North, Independent)
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I have a relevant question for the Minister on our ageing population.

The Minister's own Department, the Department of Finance, published a report last week which created ripples of alarm. It predicted a population in the Republic of Ireland of between 6.5 million and 7.5 million by 2065. That depends on the level of migration. Such migration includes young people who left Ireland to study or work in recent decades but have plans to return home in the future. Ireland’s pension system currently depends on having up to four workers to fund each retired pensioner. The pension system will be blown away and replaced by what economists define as a financial black hole at the heart of our Exchequer. This report suggests the State’s old-age dependency ratio will increase from 23% in 2022 to 55% in 2065. Are the Minister and Government concerned about these predictions? What measures can be introduced to deal with what will become a very serious issue?

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy. Of course, the sustainability of our social insurance scheme is an important concern of Government. What are we doing in relation to it? First, it is important to acknowledge the Social Insurance Fund is in healthy surplus and is a big part of our overall healthy public finances at the moment. Second, this is the very reason we are going ahead with the auto-enrolment pension scheme. As we roll it out next year, it will pose challenges and costs because it is a transformational scheme. However, it is at the heart of ensuring sustainability in pension policy in the decades ahead. It is by encouraging and incentivising, in particular, those starting their working life to set money aside to complement a pension provided by the State later in life. Finally, an important element of it of all is that as we all, I hope, look forward to longer lives, if we have the opportunity to work for longer, as many want to do, that makes an important contribution to the dependency rate the Deputy referred to. It is an important issue the Deputy has called out and the commission of care report on this that will be out early next year will, I hope, inform a really good debate on the matter.