John Kelly (Labour)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. Having worked with older people for 28 years as a community welfare officer, it is obvious they want to live at home for as long as possible. My experience over recent years has been that home care packages have not been funded properly and that home help hours in my county would be better described as home help minutes. I made a proposal to the Minister for Health in the House previously to make greater use of community employment schemes to provide home help. The cost would be minimal. Carers are employed under the rural social scheme and the same should be done under community employment schemes.

The mindset in the Department of Social Protection regarding medical referees for carer's allowance applications is to refuse everything. People are being put through enormous grief.

I met a young man recently who gave up his job ten years ago to look after this mother. Thankfully, she is still alive but now he is being told by her public health nurse that her incontinence pads will be rationed, even though she has a medical card. It is a huge issue and I acknowledge the Minister of State will take on board all the issues we raise.