Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail)

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Treacy, for taking this adjournment matter. As it was submitted only within the past 24 hours, I convey my appreciation to the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs for the alacrity with which it has replied. It affords me an opportunity to raise an issue of fundamental importance to those in rural areas and to those organisations, almost all of which are voluntary, who care for the aged in various disparate parts of this country and, indeed, within the urban areas, but I am focusing mainly on rural areas.

As a result of representations made to me on a continuous basis, it is timely to request the Minister to review the operation of the community supports programme. I record my appreciation to my friend and colleague, Councillor FrancisKilmartin of Leitrim County Council, who, as a representative of the Kilturbet Care of the Aged, raised the difficulties that his association was encountering in accessing sufficient funds from the section in the Department for a number of applicants in the immediate area of Drumcong and Kilturbet. This led me to make some investigations and I came to the conclusion, based on discussions with those who are involved in the system and the stakeholders at the receiving end, that there is an urgent need for a review of this scheme.

I also wish to record my enthusiastic support for the scheme. It is a humane scheme which has helped address the fears and concerns of the elderly living in rural areas. They now have a support service, backed up by financial resources from the Government, to assist in the provision of security in their homes.

Two of the applicants in the area to which I refer were turned down because they were not of the required age of 65. There is a need to revisit this arbitrary age criterion because one of the applicants is a stroke victim living alone in a rural area and the other is a non-national living in a remote part of County Leitrim. In normal circumstances both of these applicants would be eligible for an initiative of this sort, but they were immediately and arbitrarily ruled out because they are one year and two years, respectively, short of 65.

The second element of the request for a review relates to the €300 available for the installation of a panic alarm. Technology has progressed and now there are different forms of panic alarm. A number of agencies who help the elderly in the respective areas are now using a wide variety of different systems. In Kilturbet, they have established that a device which costs between €450 and €500 is much more acceptable to their client base than those being suggested by the Department. From my investigations, there is widespread support for the view that the €300 figure, which it appears was set arbitrarily because there seems to be no history of its origin, should be increased or at least that there should be flexibility built into the system to grant a larger sum where those making the application to the section have a justifiable reason for doing so.

There is another reason for an urgent review of the system. I understand that the history of this concept of community support originated in the then Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs and that it has been inherited by the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs only in the past two years. It is now operating out of Tubbercurry in County Sligo. This is yet another example of the Government's commitment to ensuring decentralisation in that the Department of the Minister, Deputy Ó Cuív, will ultimately permanently reside near Knock, but in the short term, to the great credit of the Minister and of the staff involved in the Department, it is now operating out of temporary accommodation in Tubbercurry in County Sligo. Notwithstanding that, the main thrust of my request to the Minister is that there is a need for a review and he might take account of the two specific areas of review I mentioned.