Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

On amendment No. 26, tabled by Senator Marie-Louise O'Donnell, we have had this discussion over and over again and we are at one about what should happen, but the difficulty is that this is the wrong piece of legislation. As the Senator rightly pointed out, there are many pieces of legislation into which these types of safeguards on will and preference should be inserted. Unfortunately, this Bill is not the appropriate place because none of us has a right to decide where we are going to live or how we are going to live in many ways. Of course we can decide if we have loads of money and that is possible, but the Senator's general point is that in the event that someone is already in situ in a home situation and they do not want to move from there, they should be afforded the opportunity to address that.

It is nothing to do with this Bill, it is to do with the fair deal scheme. We did look in the review at whether it was possible to offer the fair deal scheme in the home. What we discovered is that if one were to apply it to a home situation, while it would be beneficial in certain circumstances it would not suit other people who do not have family to contribute because the fair deal scheme is very much based on a contribution from the person. Despite the fact that one would be quite willing to make such a contribution for care, one would still have to heat one's home, eat and provide for all of the other needs. There must be a different mechanism for doing that. What we must do is build up community services. Most of the factors that keep us well in our own community are issues outside of the remit of the Department of Health and the Minister of State with responsibility for older people.

The next Government should create a new Department of social care, which would bring all of those related issues together to ensure that people at a later stage in their life who might need to dip in and out of services and require additional health care or support would be allowed to stay in their own homes. Equally, we need additional nursing home beds because there are people, such as Senator Craughwell's mother, who are at a particular stage in life and no matter what one would put in place they cannot safely stay in their own homes.

I accept Senator O'Donnell's point but, unfortunately, I cannot accept the amendment. I hope that in another piece of legislation we might be able to make a more reassuring and secure commitment to ensuring people can make choices about what they want. This Bill will allow people to make choices but, first, there is a big learning curve to address in terms of telling people who need to make decisions now and for them to get those who agree with their point of view, which is important, to make decisions with them.