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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 2 Mar 1993

Vol. 427 No. 2

Written Answers. - European Year of the Elderly.

Bernard Allen

Ceist:

183 Mr. Allen asked the Minister for Health the steps he proposes to take to mark the European Year of the Elderly, in view of the difficulties which the elderly have in this country through lack of State support.

This year, as the Deputy is aware has been designated European Year of Older People and of solidarity between Generations. The European Community has chosen this year to honour its older citizens, to focus on the challenges and opportunities of an ageing Europe and to reinforce links between the generations.

In each member state a National Co-Ordinating Committee has been established to ensure the success of the year throughout the Community. The co-ordinating committee in this country is representative of the social partners, of voluntary bodies representing or providing services to the elderly and of the statutory bodies with responsibility for services for the elderly.

As a mark of support for the objectives of the European Year, I was pleased to make £400,000 available this year to the National Co-Ordinating Committee to fund its programme of promotion and sponsorship of activities to celebrate the year. The committee has sought proposals from organisations at national, regional and local level which plan to organise events to mark the year.

Funding will be made available to these groups from the above allocation on the recommendations of the committee. I do not support the Deputy's view that there is a lack of State support for the elderly. Considerable progress has been made towards implementing the recommendations contained in The Years Ahead — A Policy for the Elderly. In recent years an additional £9 million was made available to the health boards to develop services for the elderly and their carers. This extra funding has enabled the health boards to expand home nursing services, to provide day care centres and day hospitals, to provide more departments of medicine of the elderly in general hospitals, to increase the number of physiotherapists and speech therapists in the community and to develop services for those with dementia.

The progress achieved in developing health services for the elderly will be maintained by the new Government. Under the Programme for a Partnership Government we will be developing a health service of the highest quality, so that people, particularly the elderly, can be confident that they will be well looked after should they need medical care. In accordance with our objective of improving the public health services, the Minister for Finance has provided £20 million in the budget for the reduction of hospital waiting lists. The priority areas which are of direct benefit to the elderly are the expansion of facilities for hip replacement, cataract and by-pass surgery. Furthermore, an additional sum of £4 million has already been provided in my Department's Estimate for this year to begin the phased implementation of the Health (Nursing Homes) Act, 1990. This £4 million will be used to subsidise the cost of nursing home care for people, mainly the elderly, who need nursing care but who cannot afford to meet the full cost themselves.
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