I have read through the Bill entirely. When we look at the opening sections of this Bill, it is about people entering the home and the quality and standard of the type of person who comes in as a home carer. I find it amazing that we are now in 2026, and we are discussing that. This Bill should have been before this House 20 years. It is totally outdated. This Bill does not push for oversight. It risks more bureaucracy and costs for the people. I have been in the House for the entire debate. It has been mentioned that there are four- to five-month waiting lists to apply for carer's allowance. That is the average in this country at the moment. That is the average that TDs around this House are telling the Minister of State. I will be honest with him: I have seen it go up to six to seven months with people applying for carer's allowance. We now have a situation in the Cork-Kerry region where we have 1,300 people on a waiting list. A total of 25% of the national waiting list is in the Cork-Kerry region waiting for home helps. That is an absolute disgrace. Nothing has been addressed about that. We are not addressing that in this Bill. We are not addressing it in this House. We are seeing the figures go up week after week and month after month but we are doing nothing about it. The one thing this Government is good at and has excelled at is waiting lists and statistics. That is what it is really good at. However, the waiting lists are not going down. They are only going up. That seems to be continuously the situation here. Deputy John McGuinness and I brought up an issue relating to the Revenue in this House last week. Deputy O'Donoghue also just spoke about the Revenue letters that went out to people and home carers. I am delighted that Revenue has written back to some of us as TDs over the past number of days and said it will not be pursuing people prior to 1 January. There is a lot more on people's plate when they are a carer for somebody when they are stressed out of their minds about how they get the dinner and cleaning done and a small bit of a break in the day to receive a letter like that from Revenue. I have yet to see a revenue commissioner in this country or any other country leave a bundle of cash behind them when they have to collect it. I would be seriously questioning the intent of Revenue after that. With the style and standard of the letter it sent out to everybody and what I have read through, and I have seen plenty of copies of them come through my office, I would seriously question the intention of the Revenue. The Bill is good. In fairness, there are an awful lot of standards in this Bill, which mean a lot of bureaucracy. There are HSE and ICT systems that cannot provide the virtual beds that we are being told about where people can convalesce at home and be monitored. That system is not in place. That system was meant to be there two years ago. There are regulations on the State that the Government will not be able to deliver in this Bill. While the intent might be great, but the Government will not be able to deliver it. It cannot bring down waiting list. How will it deliver this?

Sentiment score: 0.06