Tom Clonan (Independent)

Apologies as I was at committee with Senator Kyne and unable to attend. I am just going through the Minister of State’s statement.

Regarding the abuse that “RTÉ Investigates” uncovered, not everybody will agree with me on this but I believe that was a predictable and foreseeable set of circumstances given the model of nursing care provision and the model for care provision in general that we have in the Republic. Last night, when speaking on my Private Members’ Bill on personalised budgets, I spoke at length about the lack of choice we have in the provision of care and the models of care provision.

When care is provided in Ireland, no matter at what stage of life, whether you are a disabled citizen, teenager or young adult who needs personal assistance supports or care in the home, right up to people who acquire brain injuries through road traffic collisions or by other means, or through reason of stroke, right up to and including elderly people who become infirm by way of age, families all over the country will find themselves pushed into that space of trying to find care supports. It is a very difficult environment to find oneself in. Much of it comes down to the fact that, as a jurisdiction, we have chosen in many cases to, if you like, subcontract care. I do not mean that in the pejorative sense, rather I mean it just purely in a descriptive sense. It leads to suboptimal outcomes, as set out in the “RTÉ Investigates” programme.

The Minister, Deputy Foley, has promised to work with me on the personalised budgets model, which is directly related to how people source and access care. There needs to be more choice and a more holistic environment where people can choose. Care in a nursing home should be a last resort. We should all have the dignity to be able to live at home and administer a budget either ourselves or through our assisted decision-maker or person who will support our decisions. We are a generation that is expected – well, maybe you guys – to live to 100. We would like to think we could live at home with dignity with the minimum of supports which, while expensive, would be a fraction of the cost of nursing home care. We have to try to evolve a model. The Minister, Deputy Foley, will work on it but I hope I get the opportunity to work with her on it.

I have two final points to make. While we have the opportunity, thousands of young adults are inappropriately placed in nursing homes in the wider Dublin metropolitan region alone. Many of these young people are disabled and go into crisis when their parents pass away. I do not like to use the phrase “end up”, but that is where they end up. They are warehoused in nursing homes throughout the wider Dublin metropolitan region. That is a consequence of a lack of alternative methods of providing care and support for people. That in and of itself is an abuse of those younger people. It is systemic abuse.

The “RTÉ Investigates” programme gives us an opportunity not just to discuss the care of older persons but also that of any one of us who, by a simple twist of fate, might end up requiring care.