At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting back on services for older people, the Tánaiste and leader of the Progressive Democrats, Ms Harney, has suggested a "carrot and stick" approach to encouraging families to look after ageing relatives. She also questioned whether it was fair when people required the State to pick up the bill for long-term care in nursing homes and then gained substantially when that relative died.
There is some muddled thinking here. State assistance towards nursing home care is already means-tested. Some years ago health boards were found to be acting illegally when they insisted the means of an elderly parent included the incomes of adult children. Subsequently, as the cost of nursing home subventions rose from €15 million to €115 million, new regulations were introduced and subvention rates were tightly controlled. Any elderly person owning a home worth €100,000 may now be refused assistance. The result is that many families find it almost impossible to bridge the gap between the actual cost of nursing home care and the State subvention, where that is allowed.
Nursing home care is expensive. Ms Harney suggests families and those who benefit through an inheritance should pay. The Labour Party leader, Mr Pat Rabbitte, says workers have already paid for such care through social insurance. Fine Gael's Ms Olivia Mitchell believes that patients with assets should contribute to the cost of nursing home care. And there has been a deafening silence from Fianna Fáil.
And yet the Government is failing to support those very services that encourage independence, improve the quality of life of elderly citizens and keep them within their own communities. Local authorities, strapped for cash, have cut back on housing grants that allow elderly and disabled people adapt their homes so they can live there safely. Elderly people have had their twice-weekly home-help visits reduced to a single visit by the Department of Social and Family Affairs.
The cost of keeping elderly people in nursing care is about eight times the cost of adapting and providing health care within their own homes. Yet the Government has vigorously encouraged private nursing homes through tax concessions while cutting back on community care. People of means should, of course, pay their way. And the vast majority of them do so. A transparent system of eligibility and more generous allowances must be put in place as a matter of urgency. The Government has responsibilities in this matter and it has not lived up to them.