Michael Finucane (Fine Gael)

Yesterday I raised the issue of the helpline set up in respect of nursing homes charges with the Minister for Social and Family Affairs when he was in the House. If the Government wanted to set up a fair and efficient system, it could not have gone about it in a worse way. Ten people are staffing the helpline and, according to the Minister for Health and Children, 37,000 telephone calls were logged in one day by those ten people. She has also said she does not have the resources to provide additional staff.

The Health Service Executive comprises various regions, including the south and the mid-west. Surely, it would have been possible to leave it up to these regions with the Health Service Executive providing a co-ordinating influence. The people staffing the helpline in Tullamore are only logging the queries and are concentrating on people who were in public nursing homes. There will be chaos.

Yesterday, on behalf of a constituent and out of curiosity, I stayed on the line for 28 minutes before somebody answered my call. The person could not answer my question about whether people who were in private nursing homes should submit applications at this stage. I was told they were concentrating on people who were in public nursing homes, although many of the queries we are getting relate to people who were in private nursing homes. The reason we are getting queries from such people is that the 2001 Act, which introduced medical cards for people aged over 70 years, stated that they were entitled to care and services. Many of those people believe they are entitled to refunds.

We must wait for the Travers report. The Tánaiste said she could probably get an international agency involved to determine the pay out structure, etc., and how we approach this issue. There has been much furore about and apportioning of blame politically in respect of this saga, which we must rectify. Will the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children seriously consider the approach that has been adopted? The fact that 37,000 calls were logged in one day by ten people does not mean 37,000 people were attended to because I assure the House that people will not wait 28 minutes for their call to be answered and will hang up out of frustration. There is no point someone in the Limerick area with a query telephoning a helpline in Tullamore, County Offaly — I mean no disrespect to that area. This issue has been handled badly. The way I have suggested is the way to go about it.

I raise the implications of the decision to withdraw funding for Intel which was in excess of €50 million. The only competition for Intel business comes from Singapore and China. I wish to discuss the implications of the Government's decision to withdraw the request it made to the EU to be allowed to grant State aid to Intel. The application encountered difficulties because the amount of funding the Government proposed to grant was more than €50 million. Although the European Union has grown, the only competition Ireland faces for Intel's business comes from countries like Singapore and China. If we are in Europe, we are in Europe. It is regrettable that the funding cannot be provided. Intel will proceed with the project at its plant, fortunately, but it has expressed some reservations about future investment in Ireland. Yesterday's developments do not send out a positive signal.

I will not discuss the unemployment problems in my local area in County Limerick because they have been mentioned. If the Government were to refer to locations which are affected by high unemployment in its future attempts to convince the EU to allow it to support inward investment projects, perhaps the Commission would take a different attitude. Fortunately, the Commission has not needed to examine many projects in this country which require investment of more than €50 million. Intel, the IDA and the Government should note recent developments and take remedial action accordingly.