I thank you, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, for the opportunity to raise this matter which concerns the scheme of community support for older people. I tabled a question to the Minister last week, to which he replied, but my query tonight relates specifically to emergency lighting units in an area of north Mayo comprised of the following community alert areas: Bangor Erris, Ballycroy, Belmullet, Kilcommon, Kilmore Erris, Bellacorrick, Barnatra, Glencastle, Doohoma, Geesala, Belderrig, Inver, Pullathomas and Binghamstown.
In each of these areas, the community alert operators have received money under the scheme of community support for older people for small grants for items such as small-scale physical security equipment, window locks, door chains, door locks, security lighting and some socially monitored alarm systems such as the panic button pendant.
The case has been made clearly to me that in this area, which has been independently assessed as suffering from severe voltage collapse, or power cuts, because of the inadequacy of the overhead line and because of weather conditions in recent years, small emergency lighting units attached to the main light in a kitchen or wherever should be provided. They could operate for three to four hours and would be of great assistance to elderly people in darkness. There is not much point in having a sensory security light outside one's house if it does not work in the case of a power cut, and there have been frequent power cuts in recent years in the entire north Mayo area covering those areas.
In his reply, the Minister said that his Department's scheme is specifically designed to provide funding to improve the security and social support of older people. Is it not a fact that an emergency lighting unit in an elderly person's house could be deemed to be social support? Under this community scheme, approximately €1 million is being returned to the Minister's Department, yet the cost of what I propose, as estimated by the people involved in community alert areas in respect of those whom they have identified as being eligible for this, is approximately €50,000, which is loose change.
The Minister of State, Deputy Moffatt, has responsibility for older people and I ask him to examine the question of social support in the coming weeks and to allow for a small expansion of the scheme to include emergency lighting units as a social support. The community alert people, who are conscious of elderly people living on their own in isolated areas and do not want them lighting matches if there is a power failure, want them to be eligible for this funding. The ESB wrote to me as a result of my raising the issue and indicated that it intends to carry out major works in this area in the coming years, but that could take a long time.
I ask the Minister of State to re-examine the question of social support and consider expanding the scheme, as he can do under his remit as Minister of State with responsibility for this area, to include emergency lighting units for an identified small number of people in these localities at the minimal cost of approximately €50,000.