Geraldine Feeney (Fianna Fail)

I wish to share my time with Senator Daly.

I, too, welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Seán Power, to the House. I am pleased to be able to speak on this motion. Some €150 million was announced in last week's budget by the Minister, Deputy Cowen, to provide care for the elderly.

To take up Senator Terry's final comment that people should be allowed die with dignity in a hospital and that does not happen, I do not know where that does not happen. Sadly I have buried three family members, my mother, father and an aunt in Tullamore, County Offaly, in recent years. The dignity and respect they were afforded in a hospital before they died was such that if we had staged their deaths we could not have had it any better. Perhaps the experience in that respect in rural areas is different from that in urban areas. My experience of the dignity afforded by medical and nursing staff to loved ones dying has been fantastic and of their allowing my family to be with them. I could not fault them in any way.

When I hear Fine Gael Senators say that the €150 million allocation will not go too far in addressing needs in this area, I want to laugh, but this is not a place where one would laugh out loud. Fine Gael has been out of office for too long and has lost the knack of formulating good policy. It is back in the mindset of the old days when it was in power and everything was doom and gloom. Fine Gael Senators are still preaching doom and gloom.