Darragh O'Brien (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

In regard to adult mental health services in north Dublin, I ask the Leader to raise with the Minister for Health the fact that Curam clinic in Swords, which deals with the north County Dublin area, has no access to telephone lines and its six staff have been shoehorned into a HSE centre. However, more important is the lack of access to adult mental health services in north County Dublin. I intend to raise the matter on the Adjournment next week. In the meantime I ask the Leader to use his good offices to ask the Minister for Health to rectify the situation.

There has been much discussion in the Chamber in the past year, rightly so, on the cost of advisers and special advisers to Ministers. I was astounded to learn yesterday that the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade has seen fit to appoint a fourth special adviser who has not breached the pay cap but is commanding a salary of ¤80,000. That brings the Tánaiste's bill for special advisers to ¤500,000 per year. Perhaps the acting Labour Party leader can explain the purpose of a special fourth adviser for the Tánaiste. This is the same Tánaiste who, with the Government and Fine Gael, is presiding over cuts to home help all over the country. I raised the issue yesterday and on numerous occasions. The ¤80,000 for the special adviser would pay for between 7,000 and 8,000 home care hours.

The Labour Party manifesto makes amusing reading at this stage. One part of the manifesto which is about care in the community states that in order to free up more acute hospital beds, more step-down beds and home care packages need to be available to people who cannot be discharged without some post-hospital care. To facilitate this the Labour Party will invest additional funds in community and step-down care. That is what the Labour Party said in February 2011. Fine Gael made a similar pledge and reaffirmed it in the programme for Government, yet it is presiding over cuts of 950,000 hours in home care this year and the Tánaiste has seen fit to appoint a fourth special adviser to his office at a cost of ¤80,000 to the Exchequer.

Where are we going with this? It is no wonder that people are absolutely fuming with the cuts to the most vulnerable in society affecting people who do not need to be in hospitals and want to be cared for at home. I have still not received an adequate answer. The Leader gives the same answer every day that the Government is committed to expanding home care packages, but it is not. Some 950,000 hours have been taken away this year.

Is it true that the Government will propose a further 10% cut to adult mental health services in the upcoming budget? I believe it is true and the HSE has been advised of it. In advance of the budget, I would like the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, to come to the House and explain whether she will protect the budget for adult mental health services. The HSE is advising me and my colleagues that there will be a further 10% cut in this area. I have used the example of the whole area of north County Dublin without any access to adult mental health services at this stage.

I want the Leader to give me the rationale for the Tánaiste appointing a fourth personal special adviser at a cost of ¤80,000 to the Exchequer, bringing his bill for special advisers to more than ¤500,000 a year, while the Government is presiding over cuts to home care packages affecting the elderly and disabled.