Mary White (Fianna Fail)

Senator O'Rourke is here to learn new matters. Negative stereotyping is out of step with reality. Attending a meeting of the Joint Committee on Social and Family Affairs last February, the chair of the National Economic and Social Forum, Dr. Maureen Gaffney, stated:

Not only is our view of old age increasingly out of synch with the capabilities of older people, but we now know from psychological literature that...one can predict almost nothing about people on the basis of their age.

I will shortly be launching my policy document, A New Approach to Ageing, which will outline how the Government and society must deal with the major issues facing older people in Ireland today. I want to take this opportunity to raise a few of these issues.

Perhaps the clearest example of ageism in Irish society can be found in the health service where free BreastCheck screening for women ends at the age of 64 despite medical research that indicates that the risk of getting breast cancer increases with age. This policy is a symptom of the ageist view held by some that health treatments are better directed towards younger people. In May 2005 the National Council on Ageing and Older People produced a report entitled Perceptions of Ageism in Health and Social Services in Ireland. It involved research and interviews with 450 older people and 150 health and social services staff. I have many quotations from it but will read just one:

The older people consulted in this study cited numerous examples of having health complaints dismissed as part of the aging process. Many felt that their doctors were not taking their health needs and concerns seriously.

This is the point that Senator Kett made in his opening speech earlier, that he had explained to his father's GP that his problem was related to health and not age, and could be easily resolved. This is a shocking indictment of ageism in health and social service provision in Ireland.

I am now looking at community care options. Older people who fall ill have few care options and many see nursing home care as their only option in spite of Government policy. In 1988 the Department of Health produced a policy document entitled The Years Ahead, and this policy should have been carried out since then. There has been no revision of it and the policy, which was the ideal way older people should be looked after, has not been implemented. Although the policy specified that older people should stay in their homes and have a backup care support system, 50% of the budget spend on older people goes on residential care. This is the opposite to the policy. Although the money was to go into home care to keep people at home as long as possible, half of the €1 billion spent every year goes to residential care. We must redirect more resources into home care packages, home help and respite care services that reflect the wishes of older people, who want to stay in their own homes as long as they can.

Subventions are inadequate for people in nursing home care. There is a shortage of public beds while there is an oversupply of private beds. That will be news to Senators. Those who qualify for a public bed, but where none is available, must take one in a private nursing home, where weekly bed costs range from €700 to €1,000. As the ordinary maximum subvention is €190, the older person who cannot get a place in a public nursing home must produce €600 to €700 per week to pay for a private nursing home, or his or her family must pay it. Yesterday I received from the National Council on Ageing and Older People a document entitled Improving the Quality of Life for Older People in Long-Stay Care Settings in Ireland, which goes deeply into the topic on which Senator Norris spoke. It compares private and public nursing homes and finds that in many cases the public nursing homes are better because the ratio of nurses to assistants is greater.