David Norris (Independent)

I agree with Senator O'Toole that it is regrettable these matters become a subject of contention on partisan lines and I will vote with the Government this evening. It praises itself too much but we need to encourage it because good work has been done in this budget. The Minister of State is decent and caring, which is obvious from his comment that the visits of meals on wheels providers were as important as the meals.

My old uncle ended up as a parson in rural England and used to visit elderly parishioners who were bedridden with arthritis. That human contact made an enormous difference to their lives.

I spoke to members of Age Action Ireland and they were positive about the budget. They were pleased that old age pensioners were now allowed to earn up to €100 per week without coming into the tax bracket or it affecting their pension, in contrast to the €7 at present. I welcome that significant improvement. The pension increases were in line with what Age Action Ireland asked for so it must and will congratulate the Minister.

Irish pensions, however, are only 32% of gross average earnings, less than the target of 34%. In comparison with other European countries we are not living up to our obligations to older people. The OECD average is 57% and in Luxembourg it is 102%. That is a wonderful figure though I wonder if it is correct. It suggests there is a premium for moving into the pension bracket which is a wonderful idea, and becomes even more wonderful the older I get.

The Harney package of €150 million over 2006 and 2007 for home care is very welcome and indicates a welcome change in attitude. I listened to an RTE radio programme today on a facility in which old people were given physiotherapy and training for living alone. I recognised the voice of a decent old fellow who was the father of a man I was in school with and explained how the facility enabled him to continue living alone. He had got to a point where he had difficulty dressing himself but they taught him how to do so and showed him exercises to make it physically easier. Socialisation was also a major feature of the facility and anything like that represents money well invested.

There are differences in the standard of home help between ourselves and the North, to our disadvantage. We should at least bring the service up to the level it is in Northern Ireland.

At a time when the health services are described by the Minister and others as having systemic problems and are in the middle of a re-organisation, can the Minister of State reassure us that there is sufficient bureaucratic capacity to implement these measures? I encountered a wonderful misprint at a meeting of the Joint Committee on Transport calling the Competition Authority the "Completion Authority". That would be very useful in this State. Like an implementation board it would have the completion authority and could be sent in to complete these valuable programmes.

We have heard nothing about the creation of further public nursing homes. I want to raise an issue of particular concern in this area. The Leas Cross nursing home was a private nursing home, and such homes are inspected on a fairly regular basis. I do not believe there is the same supervision of public nursing homes. There should be because of simple and avoidable things, such as bedsores, which we need to know about and address.

I welcome what the Minister of State said. Further research is needed. A very good report on health and social services for older people found, for example, that there were discrepancies between different health board areas. We need to know why people are not taking up the services or getting the same service they did. It would be useful to look into this and I hope the Minister of State can facilitate research in this area.