Brendan Ryan (Labour)

My view is of a monumentally incompetent Department run by monumentally incompetent Ministers and a monumentally incompetent HSE which blames systems failures for everything. Systems failures mean that the managers cannot or will not manage. They mean that the people in charge did not devise proper systems, ignored problems until they blew up in their faces and then blamed everybody else except themselves for the consequences. They now want us all to wait while they get around to formulating the policy they announced five years ago and never implemented. That is my view. Those responsible for this debacle should at least show some urgency.

Recommendation No. 4 reads: "Funding arrangements for nursing home care should be urgently reviewed". The response reads: "Work is ongoing". Give us a break. Work has been ongoing on this issue since the 1990s.

Recommendation No. 5 reads: "The Nursing Home Legislation needs to be urgently updated". The Department of Health and Children's view of the words "urgently" is sometime this year or maybe next year. I do not know what the word means when the report highlights monumentally poor management. I am tired at the pointing of the finger at nurses, doctors, care assistants, ambulance drivers and other while those responsible for managing the HSE get away with the nonsense that there was a systems failure. When an old man bleeds to death, it is a systems failure. "Systems failures" is code for management incompetence. I could go on forever. Each of the HSE responses to the recommendations made in the Leas Cross report is exactly the same and indicates that it is proceeding on a path but there is no hint of a sense of urgency.

The Minister of State wants to know what I would do. First, I would confront the fundamental unstated problem, about which we all know. The Department of Finance is resolutely committed to not accepting any major funding commitment for old people in long-term care. It is determined to extract a pound of flesh, if not hundreds of pounds of flesh, in payments from old people if they have any assets or if their children have any income. We are being held up by the inability to produce before a general election a politically neutral proposal on the funding of long-term care. It is all about running away from the delightful fact that people are living longer and better lives than ever before, which is seen by the Department of Finance as a problem, not something to celebrate. It is determined that we will not accept the responsibility for our old people that we have accepted for educating our children and in so many other areas of life.

I have no idea how bodies such as the HSE and the Department of Health and Children can remain in an apparent state of catatonic relaxation and ignore what is happening. The legislation to deal with standards did not require a huge effort or consultation with European partners or various interest groups. Everybody working in the system, including the nursing home operators, wants this legislation.