The group of home helps, mostly low paid women workers, whom I brought to the Gallery for Leader's Questions two weeks ago will hold a demonstration tomorrow against the Government's moves to cut home help hours and privatise home help services. They decided to hold this protest because they were so furious at the Taoiseach's response to the concerns I raised on their behalf and the way he misrepresented their plight and that of elderly and disabled people for whom they provide services.

The Taoiseach dismissed the idea that home helps are now working on an on-the-clock system, when they are. He also said people who need home help hours are getting them, when huge numbers of home help hours are being cut. A woman contacted my office today to tell me she has been on a waiting list for home help for weeks and now has to pay a private home help company €26 per hour to get the services the Government is not providing for her. That example is at the nub of the issue. Home helps who are working for not-for-profit organisations and earning approximately €12 per hour are being replaced by private companies that are charging €26 per hour.

It gets worse. The person advising the Minister for Health, Deputy James Reilly, was until last year working for Sedexo, the parent company of one of the private home help providers that is benefitting from Government cuts in home help hours and the privatisation of the home help service.

Will the Taoiseach reverse these despicable cuts in home help hours which are being directed at the elderly and disabled in our society? Will he halt the agenda of privatising home help services to the benefit of private companies that see the needs of the elderly and disabled as nothing more than an opportunity to make profit? Will he come out of the bubble of the Dáil tomorrow and meet the home helps when they arrive at the gates of Dáil Éireann and assure them that he is not going to sacrifice their jobs and their service in order to pay back the bankers and speculators who wrecked our economy?

Last Thursday morning, Deputy Boyd Barrett brought a number of people with disabilities to the House and put them up in the Gallery. They were looking for services. Deputy Boyd Barrett e-mailed them and told them not to meet local health service officials, because the Deputy had an opportunity to embarrass the Tánaiste, who serves the same people in his own constituency.

Shame. Disgraceful. Scandalous.

That was disgraceful treatment.

That is not true.

The Taoiseach is misleading the Dáil.

Deputy Boyd Barrett is misleading his constituents.

That was disgraceful treatment by a public representative of people with a disability. If the Deputy can deny what I say he should do so.

I hope the media are taking note of this because I can show evidence that what the Taoiseach said is not true.

Exposure in the media is all the Deputy wants.

The adviser to the Minister for Health has been an adviser since February of this year. Her job is to give the Minister advice in the best interests of the health service, in which she is an expert. In 2005, this person took on a role as a consultant to Zehnacker, a German company providing a range of services to health services and other areas in a number of European countries. That company provided services such as catering, cleaning, facility management and so on. In June 2010, Zehnacker merged with the multinational company Sedexo. It is Sedexo that is the parent company of Comfort Keepers. The adviser to the Minister was never involved with the new aspect of that business venture.

I am also advised that the HSE has confirmed that the recently concluded tender for certain home care services has been carried out strictly in accordance with all appropriate EU legislation.

It should be noted that the outcome of this tender process will not impact on existing service providers and will only apply to any new home care packages to be assigned during the lifetime of the agreement. The fundamental motivation for the tender was the introduction of improved standards for enhanced home care services for clients nationwide. The tender is due for review in 2013.

I hope the Taoiseach will correct the record of the Dáil when I show him and the media the evidence that what he said was misleading the Dáil. I had never seen and certainly had no hand in writing the e-mail to which the Taoiseach referred.

The Tánaiste had a copy of it.

No, he did not.

He did.

He did not. That e-mail-----

Would you please ask a supplementary question?

I discovered afterwards from the parents in the Gallery that the e-mail was sent by the parents themselves to the director of services at Dunmore House. It had nothing to do with me.

You set it up and it backfired on you.

The Taoiseach has misled the public and the Dáil.

Will you ask a supplementary question?

In it they expressed their anger that they had contacted the Tánaiste, Deputy Eamon Gilmore, the week before and he had not responded. He later refused a meeting which the parents wanted.

The Deputy's time is up.

The question I asked the Taoiseach was about the cuts in hours for home helps and the moves to privatise the home help service. Does he not think it is a very serious conflict of interest to have somebody who was working for a private company, which is involved in the provision of for-profit health care services, now advising the Minister to privatise the home help services to the benefit of private for-profit companies?

I must interrupt the Deputy. You cannot come in here and make suggestions or allegations concerning individuals.

I did not mention the individual, a Cheann Comhairle.

There is a time and a place to deal with that issue, not on the floor of this House.

The Deputy said enough to identify the person.

It is tradition that we do not do that.

I did not mention the individual.

You referred to a person who is easily identifiable. Would you please adhere to the normal Standing Orders of this House?

That is true.

Will the Taoiseach tell the home help workers and the elderly and disabled people to whom they provide services that he will reverse these cuts and halt the moves to privatise home help services, where not-for-profit organisations are being replaced by profit hungry private companies that are charging much more from our vulnerable and elderly citizens and degrading the quality of that service by demanding that home helps work on the clock?

That is true.

It is disgraceful conduct by the Deputy to involve himself with bringing persons with a disability to the House in order to make a politically opportunistic charge against the Tánaiste.

Answer the question.

I hope the Taoiseach will apologise for misleading the House when I provide the evidence that he is.

Second, I advise Deputy Boyd Barrett to table a Topical Issue matter-----

That is the sort of dishonest spin that characterises the Government.

-----and the Ceann Comhairle might allow it to be discussed.

In respect of the tender, it was awarded strictly in accordance with the EU requirements.

Address the cuts.

It was designed to provide enhanced services for people who need them.

In your dreams.

In respect of the third issue the Deputy raised, the Ceann Comhairle has already dealt with him comprehensively in that regard. However, it is not beyond the Deputy to try again.

You are worse than Bertie Ahern now.