Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate Senator Marie-Louise O'Donnell on an excellent report. It is not every day that we get agreement in this Chamber but the Senator's report has achieved that and she is to be commended. It is a fine and timely piece of work. I welcome the Minister and congratulate her on her recent appointment. I have been through the bereavement grant process and it means a lot to families. Now that we seem to have some additional fiscal space, and maybe even some hidden fiscal space, it is high time for the Government to look at the issue and see if it can give people some reassurance.

A colleague of mine has been told he will lose his weekly heating grant because he has savings. However, those savings are destined to pay for his funeral. That seems to be a terrible way to punish someone after a lifetime of work. It is wrong and I think we all agree on that. I note that the grant is being phased out but that is not the point and somebody in their 70s should not be faced with the choice. It is an example of the State at its worst.

We need to look at standards because there is a huge gap in home care services. Senator Kelleher said we should try to keep people in their homes for as long as possible but there are a number of private sector operators which pay their staff as little as €9.50 and have them on precarious work contracts. One cannot have high-quality standards of care and continuity of care if such companies lose staff every six months because it does not pay them to work. It does not pay them if they do not get money while travelling from one person's home to another. There is exploitation in this area. We should look at bring in a sectoral employment order to ensure that high standards of pay and training exist throughout the sector. The same applies to nursing homes. We seem to have drifted into a situation where care for the elderly has been effectively privatised in the past two decades, which is a retrograde step.