John Crown (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I know the Minister is not an uncaring, unthoughtful or unkind person. However, the specific cuts to the carer's respite grant will come across as unkind and I believe they were not well thought through. I know it will be irritating to hear criticism from some folks who, to varying degrees, have been responsible for the predicament in which the Minister finds herself. It is difficult to maintain decent social services when one has rising demand and decreasing available resources.

I must vote against this Bill, however. All we can do is have a Quixotic attempt to defeat it. Defeat of this Bill has as much chance of occurring as the Mayan apocalypse in three days time. It is important to make a statement because the carers of the severely handicapped young, the severely disabled old and those with cancer believe so. I accept savings have to be made some place but there is an uneconomic aspect to this cut if one considers one extra day spent in hospital because there is no carer at home will wipe out the annual savings for that one person. Hospital days cost ¤1,000 a day in the health system. A way must be found around this cut.

Here are several suggestions the Minister can take to Cabinet to make these savings of ¤26 million. Every public relations contract in the public service should be cancelled along with the firing of every press secretary in the public service. Every Minister and senior executive in Departments and quangos should be made to speak for themselves on a once-a-month basis at press conferences. I would also fire most of the Health Service Executive, HSE, bureaucrats. There was a ludicrous idea several weeks ago of introducing boot camps for these HSE administrators to teach them financial management skills. Money can be found for all sorts of nonsense. I would also end mandatory retirement, as my friend and colleague Senator White suggested, as well as cutting the quangos.

I know the Government will win the vote on this Bill but I suggest the Minister goes back to Cabinet with other suggestions for the carer's cut.