Marie Louise O'Donnell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish to raise a matter which I raised a few weeks ago and which is not going to go away. If we look around society generally or even just the Seanad, we are all ageing. Some of us are ageing very well, but our elders need to be looked after in their homes and communities or in voluntary private or public nursing homes. There is a complete lack of adequate nursing home care for our elders. This is a major concern in every town, village and county. In recent weeks, I have been liaising with many of the relevant bodies. There are many problems relating to this matter. There are, however, three main problems, the first of which is Garda vetting. If vetting followed the person and not the institution, young healthcare assistants who are obliged to move around would not have to go through three, four, five, six or seven vettings. Some of them can be out of work awaiting vetting for four to six weeks. Were they given the power to find their own clearances, we might be able to hold onto them in work fulfilling needs for much longer.

The second problem relates to critical skills. This labour force does not fall under the critical skills category. Therefore, it is often impossible for them to enter this country. Conversely, people doing bone work in agriculture can enter the country under the critical skills category.It is extremely important that, as a valued society, we make a distinction between animals in abattoirs and elders in homes. The areas of critical skills, payscales and progression must be examined such that the role of health care assistant to our elders or disabled persons, be it in the community or nursing homes, becomes an attractive career. Currently, a person in receipt of social welfare payments or a pension is precluded by Revenue from working in this area. There are many people in our towns and villages who would like to give of their time but because they are in receipt of a small pension or social welfare payment, they are precluded from doing so. These people should be permitted to work in the community for up to 15 hours per week with no effect on their payments. They should be free to do work for whatever fee the elderly person wants to pay for the service without the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection or the Revenue Commissioners taking a cut. If we allowed people in our communities to give back to those communities rather than penalise them for doing so, we would find in this country people at the health care assistant level and other levels as well. We are not thinking creatively about these issues. We are penalising for the sake of it and not allowing people to do a job that they would love to do if they did not face losing part of their pension or social welfare payment.

We are legislators in this House. I would like the Ministers for Health and Employment Affairs and Social Protection to come to the House for a debate on this issue. We could change the position very easily by way of an amendment to the vetting legislation and by addressing the issue of healthcare assistant critical skills. We need to be creative. I ask that the Ministers forgo knocking on the doors of Ireland in the local election campaign and come to the House for that debate.