Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am supporting this motion. There is nothing in it one could not support, although it is perplexing that Fine Gael has tabled this motion. It has been in government since 2011 and have not implemented many of the calls contained in it even though they were in programmes for Government. I echo the calls of my colleagues that the Minister of State comes back in and gives us a progress report in a number of months.

People are living longer. It is projected there will be more than 1 million people aged 65 and over by 2030. That is only a few years down the road. Many people in their 60s, 70s or 80s are active and are still out working, but there are challenges for people as they age. There are usually higher levels of ill health and a greater demand on social and healthcare services. We need to invest in those.

I commend a number of voluntary organisations in my area that provide support to older people, such as Kilnaleck social services. Cavan has a positive age group. They do wonderful work with older people, providing meals, bringing people on trips, and organising activities, exercise, education and so forth. They are dependent on fundraising for the most part. More support needs to be given to voluntary organisations for the important work they do in combating isolation among older people.

We need to invest more in preventative health measures. For example, we have a stroke strategy but sufficient funding has not been given to implement that strategy. There can be many good strategies and implementation plans but if they are not funded they sit on the shelf. More funding is needed to ensure various health strategies are implemented.

If possible, most other people want to live in their own homes. Last year there were more than 5,000 people on a waiting list for a home care assistant. Approximately 10% of older people approved for home support had no carer at that stage. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of people have been assessed and approved for an increase in hours and even though the funding is there, there are no carers. They and their families are trying to get by with insufficient caring hours.

Unless there is a strategic approach to workforce planning across the health and social care sector, that is not going to change. We need a pay agreement in the sector and greater public investment in the home care sector. There could be a career pathway for carers, with advanced skillsets, and a greater role for nurses and other health and social care professionals in delivering care in the home. There is a shortage of community nurses at the moment, which is having an impact on people being assessed for home care hours. That is something that needs to be addressed.

The lack of home carers is leading to a delayed discharge from hospital for many people. We have had thousands of people in hospital longer than they needed to be because they could not go home as there was no one to provide the care they required in their home. Beds are being used when they should not be. We should be able to send people home. They should have sufficient care at home to look after them.

There is a commitment in the programme for Government to remove the means test for carer's allowance, which is absolutely essential. Family carers feel forgotten and unappreciated. Many say they are isolated and lonely and encounter health challenges of their own. Removing the means test for the carer's allowance will go a long way to combatting that.

I raised with the Minister of State's predecessor, the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, the boarding out regulations and the need for them to be updated. Despite her assurance they would be looked at, and her officials telling me they were being looked at, nothing has happened or changed. Boarding out regulations are when an individual or family can take an elderly person into their home and care for them. These are people who do not require the medical care of a nursing home but cannot live at home on their own or choose not to in order to live in the community. There are a number of these providers in my area. Since 1993 this scheme has not been changed. It was reviewed 15 or 16 years ago but very little change was made. The funding provided by the HSE has not increased. Many of them are operating at a loss and will have to consider career changes, which means the people living in the homes and being cared for there will have to go into a nursing home, which is going to cost an awful lot more. We are talking about thousands of euro of a difference between what a person is charged in a nursing home and in a boarding out facility. This is something that should be looked at and rolled out. ALONE, the organisation supporting older people, supports this. It works really well. I call for it to be standardised across all CHOs, or regional health areas, because that was a problem. It was not standardised before and people were paying different amounts. People pay a certain amount of their pension and the HSE pays another amount. Different amounts are being paid by different people. If people from different areas come together in one house, such as on the border of a number of counties where certain areas meet, it can cause problems. Will the Minister of State look at that? It relates to SI 225 of 1993. That needs to be updated to ensure this can continue. The people providing this need more support.