Eamon Scanlon (Fianna Fail)

I support Senator Daly's call for a debate on nursing home subventions. A number of families have contacted me, particularly since the start of the year, when the cost of nursing home care increased substantially in some cases. There does not seem to have been an increase in the subvention paid to such families, however.

In recent days, I came across an anomaly whereby an elderly person living alone in receipt of a social welfare pension is entitled to the living alone allowance. However, elderly people living alone on a pension for which they have worked and contributed all their lives, but which is not a social welfare payment, are not entitled to a living alone allowance. We should examine that matter because such a person has the same financial needs as someone on a social welfare pension. Sometimes there is not much difference between both pensions.