Rónán Mullen (Independent)

I would be grateful if we could have a debate soon on the needs of elderly people, especially those in nursing homes. The nursing homes support scheme Bill is to be published soon and it will be an interesting debate about the financing of nursing home care. The Health Information and Quality Authority, HIQA, will be involved in the registration and inspection of nursing homes.

There is another aspect to the experience of life of our elderly in nursing homes, namely, loneliness. When the Cathaoirleach recently launched Muintir na Tíre's community alert awareness week it was disclosed that loneliness was responsible for the majority of calls by elderly people to monitored home alarm systems. Most of us have visited elderly people in nursing homes. Despite the best efforts of staff, elderly people are often in a television room watching programmes that are not age appropriate and have no relevance to their experience or their state of capacity.

I would like to think that we would address not just the financial issues around nursing homes. RTE Lyric FM, for example, exists for a section of the community which is clearly represented and has a voice. Elderly people have no comparable service in television or radio. The hand that rocked the cradle in the past might not have been a maternal or paternal one but it was a caring hand nonetheless. These people are now often without a voice. It is time this House debated, in a holistic way, the needs of elderly people, particularly with regard to nursing homes. I hope that debate will be facilitated soon.