Paul Bradford (Fine Gael)

I wish to raise a matter relating to carers, which I have raised in the House on many previous occasions. I would like the Leader to organise at the earliest opportunity with the appropriate Minister a debate on carers, the rules governing carer's allowance and what possible further assistance we can give to the people providing full-time care and attention to elderly persons in our community.

My colleagues will be aware that the Carers Association will hold a session for all of us in Buswells Hotel and I encourage people to attend. One of the aspects of today's presentation from the carers' groups is to ask us to reflect upon the fact that approximately 160,000 people provide full-time care and attention in the community. Even though some carers are in receipt of carer's allowance, they fall under the radar from the point of view of an economic statistic. They ask that we would at least recognise by way of GDP calculations the work being done by those people. I ask the Leader to put whatever measures are necessary in place to recognise that fact.

The issue I have raised many times in the House is that of the carer's allowance. To the eternal credit of a previous Minister, the late Séamus Brennan, he made tremendous strides in making the carer's allowance payable to a significantly larger number of people. Equally, as I said directly to the Minister for Social and Family Affairs some months ago, I am very disappointed at both her attitude and commitment to the carer's allowance system. I was very surprised at her lack of a holistic approach to caring. As a minimum we should remove the means test for carer's allowance so that everybody providing full-time care and attention to people in need of it receive that allowance. It would be a tiny financial burden as per the figures supplied by the previous Minister, the late Séamus Brennan. Even in today's hard-pressed economic times, the cost of providing non-means tested carer's allowance to full-time carers is minimal, but it would be a strong statement as to where we, as a community, stand vis-À-vis our elderly.

I welcome to an extent the progress made in regard to a fair deal and the provision of assistance for nursing home care but I would be very disappointed if we saw a nice, tidy, clean bed in a clean nursing home as our only aspiration for the elderly.