David Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The response of this Government in terms of supporting older people has not been much better. Let us review the record of Fine Gael and the Labour Party in this area. Under this Government, there have been cuts to home help hours and home care packages, illegal implementation of the mobility allowance and motorised transport grant scheme and a reduction in palliative care experts and hospice places. In my home city of Waterford, which has a population of more than 500,000 people, there is still no palliative care unit. The Government has promised this unit will be provided but as yet no funding is forthcoming. Also, owing to the estimated cost of this project the people of Waterford city and county and the south east are being told they will have to come up with matching funding.

This Government has also failed to provide adequate care for people with chronic diseases. Automatic entitlement to a medical card for over 70s has been abolished and there have been cuts to the fuel and phone allowances. There are still insufficient community nursing units and beds across this State. In Waterford city in 2008, we saw the closure of St. Brigid's ward in St. Patrick's Hospital, which is a geriatric care facility. There were more than 20 beds in that unit, which was closed by the Health Information and Quality Authority, HIQA. The then Minister for Health promised the people of Waterford and the south east that a new 50-bed unit to replace the beds lost would be constructed. The Government is now promising to construct a 100-bed unit, which sounds great and I welcome it but only six to eight additional beds will be provided because a number of units, owing to their being located in buildings that are not up to standard, are to be closed. Following construction of the new unit, bed capacity will still not be at the level it was in 2008. I am sure that not a day or week goes by that representatives in Waterford and elsewhere do not have to make a representation to St. Patrick's Hospital or other facility on behalf of a family of an older person seeking convalescence, long-stay accommodation or other supports. The reality is that there are not enough places.

This Government is also responsible for the outsourcing of home help hours, which we know is impacting on the people working in this sector in terms of their conditions of employment. I have been lobbied on this issue by many home help workers and trade unions. Elderly people are now being forced into private nursing homes, with the subvention they receive in this regard having to be topped up by their families. Just as we are doing with people in terms of housing provision, we are pushing elderly people into the private sector. There is no provision of public places. This is what Fine Gael does and it is currently being supported in doing so by the Labour Party. We now know that the average home care visit for older people is 15 minutes, which is wholly inadequate. I have met many home care workers who operate in the public and private sectors. They are very concerned about the supports older people are receiving owing to cuts in this area.

The pointed edge of this cuts agenda has been the drastic reduction in the number of public nursing home beds and a failure to prepare and implement a strategy to cater for the long-term residential care needs of our aging population. This is a Government which promised us a lot more than what we got. The austerity agenda it has pursued for the past six years has been, in the main, driven by Fine Gael, who believe that cuts are better than taxing people who can afford to pay a bit more to provide the services which people need. This is what Fine Gael promised and it is what it is delivering. The fact that it is being supported in this by the Labour Party is shameful. The people who are losing out are older people who are not getting the supports or services they need and their families who can only look on in horror because there is not sufficient home care help hours available for their mother, father and so on and no long-term residential facility to which they can go. They might also be finding it difficult to find a place in a private nursing home. Where they do, their families have to top up the subvention provided under the fair deal scheme.

They do not have the money themselves and may have people out of work. They have had their own problems with all the cuts they have had to take, yet they have to come up with more money again and again. We are simply not responding to the changing demographics, given that we have an ageing population. We must invest in this area otherwise we will end up with long waiting lists and people not getting the support they require.

I welcome the publication of the National Positive Ageing Strategy and recognise that this is a step forward. Its goals can be summarised as follows: to remove barriers to participation; to provide more opportunities for the continued involvement of people as they age in all aspects of cultural, economic and social life in their communities according to their needs, preferences and capacities; and to support people as they age to maintain, improve or manage their physical and mental health and well-being.

I have sharp criticisms of this Government but I acknowledge that some positive steps have been taken. We must welcome the positive aspects while at the same time criticising the Government for its failures. I have no doubt that if the Minister of State was in opposition and a similar motion was tabled by any party in Government, when one considers the cuts that have been put in place, he would be making exactly the same points as I am today. That is because he knows it is a fact and a reality that we are not investing enough to ensure older people get the supports they need. That is the Minister of State's responsibility. He was elected to do that job, so he cannot blame the previous government or other opposition parties. He must take responsibility for his policy failures, but I do not see it happening. All I can see is more of the same, including more cuts. There is also a refusal to increase taxes on those who can afford to pay most so we can provide the services that people need. That is all we are asking for from the Government.

While I support the Fianna Fáil motion, I do so acknowledging the fact that the party has also failed in this area given its participation in previous governments.