Michael McCarthy (Labour)

We wish him well as he is there on merit. People on all sides of the House would congratulate him.

A debate would be appropriate and timely on the Minister for Health and Children's recent policy suggestion regarding elderly care. We have often stated in this House, when discussing mortgage companies offering equity release, that a person's home is a castle. As a country we were able to sustain free second-level and third-level education, and care for the elderly should be based on a caring philosophy rather than harsh economics, as is clear from the recent pronouncements.

Looking at it in this light, we should be ashamed of ourselves in that we want to stake a claim in the estates of older people who had to be cared for by the State in an era when the country has plenty of money. These people have built the Celtic tiger economy and the proposal is a disgrace.