Maurice Cummins (Fine Gael)

I do not have a problem with the stated policy of the Minister, Deputy Harney, of keeping elderly people at home and providing adequate home help for them to enable them to be cared for outside of nursing homes, a policy with which I am sure everyone would agree. However, the Government's stated policy and practice in this area are different. As the motion states, home help hours have been cutback. That is a fact and we can give examples of such cutbacks throughout the country. Irrespective of what a Minister states, the facts are evident to everybody.

The Government's amendment is the usual type of amendment tabled to such motions citing what has been done between 1997 and 2005 — one would think that the world began in 1997.