Maire Devine (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have been asked by my colleague, Senator Colette Kelleher, to raise an issue on the Order of Business because she is attending the launch of a pre-budget submission by the Alzheimer Society of Ireland and cannot make it today. She wants to raise the important issue of home care services for people with dementia. She was delighted by the attendance of Senators and Deputies at the launch of the pre-budget submission. The majority of people with dementia live at home and want to remain there but they need support to do so. For too long, home care has been simply a solution to the hospital crisis and not an integral, long-term part of dementia care. Appropriate home care can keep people well in the community and out of hospital and long-term residential care. It is also vital in supporting family carers who provide the vast majority of home based care for people with dementia. Every week public representatives talk to families and carers. One family made the heart-breaking decision to put their 87 year old mother into long-term residential care because they had only been offered five to ten hours home care help. They could not do it on their own and their only option was long-term residential care. They are going through the grief of first losing a person's personality and then physically losing them to long-term care. Grief, anger and guilt come with that. I want us to support the Alzheimer Society of Ireland's pre-budget submission which asks for a paltry €67 million for 2017. On behalf of Senator Kelleher, I ask the Minister and Leader of the House to address this issue and, hopefully, we will get some agreement on it.

I also support Senator Boyhan in drawing attention to the report of the NMBI. Nursing unions have been saying for a long time how difficult it is to be a whistleblower.A report released by its own consultants has claimed that the NMBI is a dysfunctional organisation, which is what we have been saying for a long time. It has serious organisational and financial shortcomings and I hope they will be resolved.

Today, the Psychiatric Nurses Association began national industrial action in protest against severe under-staffing. I say again, if not us, who, and if not now, when? We need to deal with staffing within the mental health services. I hope the Minister for Health will engage meaningfully and not just talk when responding to the staff shortage. Finally, I support the motion tabled by Senator Rose Conway-Walsh.