Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I commend the Labour Party, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil Senators, the Independent Senators nominated by the Taoiseach, on the all-party agreement on the motion. Although I will support the motion, I have a small quibble with one sentence in it, as I wonder whether it despairs too much: "[T]hat strategy recognises the societal rather than the medical context of dementia and Alzheimer's". Would there not be a high return on research when we consider the cost of ¤1.6 billion and the 42,000 people affected by it? There is a large research budget and it seems to be a priority to see what we can come up with and whether we can form links with exercise, drugs, diet, the environment, lifestyle, counselling and positive mental health. We all get older and it is not an illness. It will happen to us and, not to medicalise it unnecessarily, we have a very large drugs industry with which the Department negotiates. There is some relationship there and we give them a good price. Do they have international research that might help the Department? Can we head it off by the appropriate medical treatment and research?

Ireland has a particular problem, as Senator Kelly said. Social studies research reflects the heavy rate of institutionalisation in the past. There were huge mental hospitals in Ballinasloe and Mullingar. Are we too deeply in that tradition or are there more positive ways of dealing with it? What would follow if the Minister and his Mediterranean colleagues got together? Countries in the Mediterranean seem to treat old age differently and there may be some hope in that.

Senator Mary White is proposing legislation to abolish compulsory retirement. Can we use research, intelligence, contacts with the drugs industry and the Minister's contacts with Mediterranean countries and eastern Europe so that we do not have to deal with dreadful consequences for patients and relatives? In places like Georgia, people live very long lives and do not experience these problems. Rather than accepting that there will be these sick people and having to provide them with accommodation care, should we refuse to accept it as inevitable?

I asked people in alternative medicine whether the decline of old people could be arrested and they responded that it would be very difficult. Perhaps there is some hope and scope in the large research budget of the Minister of State at the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Sherlock. There may be a return to shifting some of it and getting into the best international research where this is a problem. This will help the Minister to cater for disasters that happen to people and their families but to try to head some of them off before they happen and take preventative measures to promote positive mental health. We would support the Minister under such circumstances, as I support this motion. The motion contains a tinge of accepting this as inevitable and perhaps we can find scope to assist the Minister so that it is not inevitable and we can combat the problem.