Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will not go over the ground Senator John Kelly has eloquently and fairly covered. I have raised this issue previously. Irrespective of what side of the House one is on, the home help hours provided for elderly people, whether in towns or remote areas such as the area from where I come, represent very good value for money. Senator John Kelly alluded to the cost that would be involved if the State were to provide care for elderly people. I compiled a report on the issue when I was a Member of the Dáil and found that the cost to the State of such provision would be eight or nine times greater than the cost of enabling people to be cared for in their own homes. We would all like to see people being cared for in their own homes, if at all possible.

More than one year ago I dealt with the case of a 99 year old woman who had been taken to Bantry Hospital. Her son who was in his 70s who had been caring for her had cancer. He begged me to try to get the hospital to provide a long-stay bed for his mother because he was not in a fit condition to care for her. The consultant geriatrician at the hospital, a very professional man, interviewed her, did the arithmetic and she was sent home. She had never been in hospital in her life, except for these few days. The consultant said he had talked to the woman and even though she was totally blind, she was fully corpus mentis and had told him that she wanted to go home because that was where she was comfortable living. She fell short of reaching her 100 hundred birthday by a few months, but did not die as a result of the state of her health during those few days in hospital.

Geriatricians and the health experts say that in so far as it is possible to do so, it is best to care for people at home, yet because of the system in place and the cutbacks made, in some instances, home helps have only a half an hour to spend with the people being cared for. One home help has told me that she boils the kettle and makes a cup of tea for the person concerned and that some of the people to whom she calls have to be showered and brought to the toilet. Is she to leave the house after 30 minutes, similar to the time limit imposed on speakers by the Cathaoirleach from time to time, signalled by the sound of the bell, and leave the person concerned sitting on the toilet who would be unable to get up off it unaided?

There is a case to be made for home help provision for those who need the service and whom we are neglecting through these mealy-mouthed cutbacks. A case can also be made, as Senator John Kelly said, for the home helps who are providing the service, some of whom are very experienced, skillful and have been doing this work for a long time. They are being treated abominably.

That is my tuppence worth. We should work together to try to solve this problem This is not a party political issue but a national one, about which I am deeply concerned.