Brian Ó Domhnaill (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I know who owns some of them. They are people with huge mortgages who are struggling to pay them and cannot find tenants for those properties. I am sure they are lobbying Government Members. I know some of these people and I am sure the Members opposite know them as well. If the Labour Party wants new buildings when thousands of empty buildings are available, I cannot see the logic in it. We should look at refurbishment rather than new buildings.

The second part of the motion relates to the cuts in home care packages and home help. The programme for Government indicated that additional funding would be provided each year for the care of older people, with the funding going to more residential places, home care packages and the delivery of more home help and other professional community care services. With cuts of ¤8 million in home help between now and the end of the year, there will be 1 million fewer home help hours, which will force elderly people out of their homes and into public or private nursing units.

Has the Minister or the HSE the capacity between now and Christmas to assess individually all 11 million hours of home help? How can the Minister state that the assessment process is based on a review of individual needs, which is what is being said locally, when the outcome has been determined? The cuts have been put in place. How can the HSE be sure that cuts to home help hours will not just mean more people will have to avail of full-time care in a hospital setting, which is inevitable?

We are in a time when individuals are being refused a carer's allowance to look after disabled, elderly and vulnerable people. The home help hours are also being cut. We must get a grip. We are either an economy or a society. We will either look after the people who built the country or we will not.