Vulnerable people deserve better [040912]

The Government’s decision today to reverse cuts to Personal Assistant hours for people with a disability is only a partial response to the distress inflicted on vulnerable people by promised cuts to Home Care services. Older & Bolder repeats our call tonight for a reversal of the decision to cut Home Help services and Home Care Packages which benefit older people, children with life limiting illnesses and people with disabilities who need home care services.

Director of Older & Bolder Patricia Conboy said, ‘I am deeply disappointed that the Government did not reverse the decision to cut HSE Home Care services today. Nationwide, there has been a clear and strong expression of dissent and protest against all of the proposed cuts.  I acknowledge the relief the reversal of the cut to Personal Assistant services will give to people with disabilities. However, coating a savage cut to Home Help and Home care services with fine words about ‘fair and sympathetic implementation’ will not disguise the injustice of this cut; nor will it reduce the hardship the cut will inflict on people suffering illness, frailty and disability. Those who are already in receipt of services are fearful about the potential loss of services and those who are on waiting lists are fearful about the refusal of much-needed help.  With a humane decision at today’s cabinet meeting, the Government could have provided clarity, reassurance and eased the fears of those families.  Vulnerable people deserve better than this.

Ms. Conboy continued : ‘There has to be recognition that cutting frontline services is not only deeply unfair but makes no economic sense. Cuts to home care services which support older people to remain living at home and within their own communities will result in earlier admissions to nursing homes, longer stays in acute hospitals and anguish for families who wish to care for relatives suffering from illness, frailty and disability at home.  Cuts to frontline home care services are not a saving and will result in the waste of limited public resources.’