Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I commend the Irish Postmasters Union on its protest this morning outside the Taoiseach's offices. I know they did not do that lightly but out of desperation in terms of what is happening to rural post offices. I call on the Government to immediately implement the recommendations of the Kerr report. It is vital that our post offices remain open. They are a vibrant and essential part of our communities. We must stand with the Irish Postmasters Union to ensure that further post offices are not closed and that some of those already closed are re-opened.

I would also like to indicate my opposition and that of Sinn Féin to the reports in today's newspapers that home care for the elderly is to be means tested. I have a clear message for this or any Government that tries to do that - it is not going to happen. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have persecuted the elderly and most vulnerable in our communities in terms of health care and home care. I have said often enough that in my own county Fianna Fáil cut 32,000 hours in one year alone. This was followed by a cut of thousands more hours by Fine Gael, which continues to have a devastating effect on the elderly and other services such as acute hospital services, which are already over-stretched. Sinn Féin has long campaigned for home care to be on a statutory footing. I welcome the review by the Health Research Board but it must never be used as an excuse to means test the home help service. I suggest that instead of paying civil servants to forensically examine the bank and credit union accounts of elderly citizens so as to extrapolate every last cent from them, the Government should spend that money on upholding the right to health care, including the right to home help, of all of our citizens.