Brendan Ryan (Labour)

I know there is the possibility of enhanced subvention but it is entirely at the discretion of the HSE. The Minister of State said in his contribution that the average amount is above the standard but that applies to a person who is deemed to be completely dependent. The subvention, at approximately twice what we spend per week on a primary school child, is a miserable amount to spend on 5% of the elderly population for the short number of years it is required, which is probably a shorter time than a child would spend in primary education and definitely a shorter time than children would spend in second and third level education. Yet, there is a transfixed obsession in the Department of Finance that looking after the elderly is some sort of threatening bottomless pit of expenditure. The fact is that if we had the same controls over how we use expenditure when the idea for universal free primary education was thought up, we would have the same rigmarole that applies in this case.

The elderly are not a threat to the stability of society. It is a matter of political and social choice. Care of the elderly is not cost-free and nobody should pretend it is, which I do not. Nonetheless, the Government can slip through — I do not disagree with it — a 0.5% increase in the health levy for people earning in excess of €100,000 per year. It took wonderful use of smoke and mirrors to reduce the top rate of tax by 1% and then slip a 0.5% increase somewhere else to halve the impact. I will leave the Government at it. It does these things and gets away with them better than anybody else, which is why it is still in power.

I will return to the basic question. What is the point of putting old people through this level of rigmarole for a maximum subvention, without enhancement, of €190 per week, and for a maximum standard subvention of €114 per week? We have failed to address the issue of our aging population, which is an issue, not a problem or a crisis. When we had a huge primary school population, not a single person suggested we should charge for primary education, even when the schools were full, which will happen again, as another bulge is happening. When secondary schools were bursting at the seams, nobody suggested we should return to a university-style fee-paying second level system. Some daft people have suggested we should reintroduce third level fees. I repeat that is a daft idea. The level of additional funding that would accrue to third level colleges as a result, as a proportion of the total amount of money they need to spend, would not be worth it when one considers the significant disruption it would cause to people's personal finances. It would be daft. I do not understand how sensible people like the Minister of State, Deputy Seán Power, can justify telling elderly people that they intend to impute an income of 5% of the commerical value of their houses. The commercial value ascribed to a house may depend on whether it is one yard inside or outside the border of County Dublin. Who thinks up such schemes?