Paul Bradford (Renua Ireland) | Oireachtas source

Not old age, I hope. I was surprised to learn that we actually had ratified the 1999 UN convention because we are certainly not complying with it and I am not even sure what efforts we are making to comply with it. Are we doing anything? Have we done anything over the past ten, 15 or 20 years to assist our elderly people to reside at home as long as possible? Absolutely not. Have we improved health care provision notwithstanding the economic meltdown? Absolutely not. What sort of provision is there for elderly people in cultural or educational services? It is minimalist. We have gone backwards rather than forwards.

Last week, the budget was well re-played in this House and elsewhere. The debate about the elderly in the budget revolved around the fair deal scheme - the nursing home subvention as I call it. There was a modest but welcome increase in old age pensions. However, if one asked elderly people throughout this country what the services and aspirations they were hoping for - not from a one-day budget but from Government - they would talk about security in their homes, certainty of health care and trying to remain in their homes as long as possible.

The Minister of State is doing her best to try make progress on the fair deal scheme. I raised the very lengthy waiting period for assessment many months ago in this House, as did my colleagues. We have become obsessed with this scheme as being somehow a solution to elderly care and we see the nursing home, the decent nursing home bed and decent nursing home provision as meeting the aspirations of the elderly. We must recognise that the vast majority of elderly people in this country do not want to be in nursing homes. They want to be at home with their families and communities. We have completely failed to respond to that aspiration.

Senator Kelly gave the figures about the individual case in Galway and we can all talk about such cases. We can all talk about cases where because of our very narrow definition of means for carer's allowance, we are refusing carer's allowance payments to family members and neighbours which would cost the State a maximum of €10,000 per annum. In many cases, those people who fail to get the assistance of a carer's allowance end up in residential care costing the State a multiplicity of those figures. Due to the economic meltdown, our changes to the public health nurse scheme and the home help scheme have resulted in people seeking long-term residential care rather than care in the community.

Our focus is wrong. We receive on a monthly basis lobbying calls or letters from the nursing home organisations. Of course, I would lobby if I was them because it is a profitable venture. This is not charity. It is a cold and clinical business. Insofar as the State can respond, we are responding to that business - perhaps not as sufficiently as they would wish - but we are not responding to the much broader issue of attempting to allow people to remain at home. I know that in the Minister of State's response, the Minister's response and the response of all politicians, we will claim that we aspire to allowing people to remain at home but we are failing to do so. Senator Kelly, as a former community welfare officer and former member of the council, and I can remind the Minister of State that there was a time when the very basic disabled person's grant scheme processed locally resulted in a modest grant of €1,500, €2,000 or €3,000 being paid to somebody to permit a minor improvement to their house from an accessibility perspective to allow them to stay at home. Now there is no point in approaching the council seeking a grant of €1,500. The job needs to cost €15,000 or €30,000 before the council will even consider it.We really have lost the run of ourselves and common sense has gone out the door. The schemes which existed and worked well, such as the home help, the disabled person’s grant and the carer’s allowance in its early days, were real solutions. We must go back to those practical solutions because they worked. No matter what progress the Minister of State makes with the fair deal scheme, there are all sorts of anomalies, a fact highlighted by Senator John Kelly. Even if we remove the assessment waiting lists, it will not solve the problem of those who want to stay at home. It must be a question of focusing on community, changing the carer’s allowance, providing sufficient home-help packages, freeing up the old disabled person’s grant and making them work.

I commend the Senators on moving this motion and causing us to reflect on this issue once again. We are failing the elderly. This country is facing a pensions crisis, along with an entirely new set of demographic problems. If we think progressing the fair deal scheme is the answer to it, we are sadly mistaken.