Camillus Glynn (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate. The Bill provides for the amendment of the Health Act 1970 to address two substantive matters, namely, to provide a legal framework for the charging of patients for the maintenance element of in-patient services in publicly funded long-term care residential units and for the introduction of doctor-visit medical cards. The Government has introduced the legislation to establish a sound legal basis for the policy of requiring a contribution towards shelter and maintenance of people with full eligibility in long-stay institutions. All Governments and all parties in Government have supported and implemented this policy. The Supreme Court recently confirmed that it is constitutionally sound for the Oireachtas to legislate for this policy. The issue is finally being put beyond legal doubt after almost 29 years.

I welcome the Supreme Court decision, which found sections of the previous Bill unconstitutional in the context of people's property rights. I do not agree with the approach taken by a small number of members of the medical profession. I have worked with the elderly for a long number of years. Many old people want to stay in the homes and communities in which they were born and reared. When they need care, the approach of a number of practitioners is that there are pills for all but that is not, nor should it be, the case.

The best community care service should be provided together with social supports, including support by families so that people are not consigned to care institutions and forgotten about. Regrettably, that has been the case too often over the years. The popular misconception is that care in the community involves private nursing homes, geriatric hospitals or welfare homes but I do not accept that because many community care models can cater for the elderly. However, that is a matter for another day.

Senator Browne referred to the uncaring attitude of Fianna Fáil but that is amusing when one considers that a few short years ago when Fine Gael was in Government it made Ebenezer Scrooge look like a benevolent Santa Claus with gleaming robes in terms of what it did not do for the elderly. It was a joke. I admire the Senator's tenacity and hard neck to criticise a government that has been a flagship for the elderly.