Liam Twomey (Fine Gael)

My gut instinct from what the Minister said in her statement is that everybody in the Department is politically correct in terms of being seen to do the right thing, have the right policies, put the right structures in place and, yet again, review the recommendations of a previous report but they are not really concerned about what is happening on the ground. That is probably because the establishment of the HSE disconnected politicians and Ministers from what is really happening. I do not get the sense that the Minister fully understands what is taking place.

I raised the Leas Cross issue a number of times in the House and with the Minister. One of my first questions to the Minister was about Leas Cross. I asked her when the Garda would investigate it. Leas Cross exploded on to the airwaves in 2005 but we are still waiting for another report on what happened there from both the Garda Síochána and the HSE. What happened in Clonmel is recent. It is shocking because it involves a HSE facility. I am sure the Minister is also well aware of the significant complaints that have been made about abuse of patients in St. Mary's in the Phoenix Park. There is an ongoing dispute there involving the HSE, the Department of Health and Children and a former employee at that hospital. However, the Minister's statement is the type of drivel one would get from a masters degree student who has never stepped inside an institution. It is all about policy; there is nothing about the human beings inside these institutions.

The Government has shown no leadership in dealing with elder abuse and the instances of neglect I have mentioned in St. Mary's, Phoenix Park, Clonmel and Leas Cross. The institutions where this is happening are the Minister's responsibility. The majority of abuse is happening in the home and is caused by relations, family members and people who know the person. The elderly patient is significantly isolated within the community and therefore has nobody to stand up for him or her. The Minister correctly pointed out that public health nurses are more likely to notice abuse of elderly patients but these nurses are not now in a position to visit elderly patients as often as they should, due to Government cutbacks.

The number of case officers mentioned by the Minister is roughly one per county. One case officer to investigate all the cases and potential cases of abuse in a county is insignificant. It will not work. Despite the number of organisations and strategy groups the Minister is establishing to examine the issue of elder abuse, my instinct is that the Minister is just going through the motions and being seen to do the right thing rather than actually doing the right thing. If she was really honest about this, she should pursue the Leas Cross issue. That would show the Government has the concern and the teeth to do something about patients being abused in institutions. That type of action would not take long to feed into the system and demonstrate that somebody genuinely cares about what is happening to elderly people.

We will not stamp out all abuse, be it physical, emotional, sexual or financial. This is because it is far more ingrained within society than the Minister of State cared to admit in her contribution. The least we can do is to care, not to seem to care, and to try to do something about the issue. That is where the Government has failed completely.

If the Minister of State has an opportunity to respond now or in the future, I would like her to outline the final outcome of the investigation into Leas Cross. I have asked about it in this House for the past two years and for the two years prior to that when I was a Member of the Dáil. Why does the Health Service Executive not make a more comprehensive effort to deal with obvious cases of abuse when they arise? It is not enough to have an inquiry or a whitewash report that gets a number of people off the hook. We need to change the way we see and do things within the health service when it comes to elderly abuse.

I accept there are difficulties for people working in the health service. It is not always easy and there are two sides to every story. Sometimes unfounded allegations of abuse are made. If an elderly person or a family member read the Minister of State's contribution, he or she would not get involved because he or she could read between the lines that he or she could get into a lot of bother with other family members or people in the community and could not rely on the full and committed support of either the HSE or the political establishment. That has shown through. Perhaps the Minister of State will respond now or later, assuming she is still in office after 21 April, to some of the questions we have asked, tell us what is going on and what she is doing about stopping this abuse in society.