The Senator should refrain from mentioning the names of public officials on the record.

I am not sure whether there is a problem in mentioning the Secretary General of the Department of Health, who is Mr. Ambrose McLoughlin, and-----

As you know, officials are not Members of the House and cannot come in to defend themselves.

I am going to defend them now.

It does not matter whether you are speaking-----

I am defending them against the Government using them as a shield. Let us be straight on this. We tabled amendments to the Health Service Executive (Governance) Bill 2012 that proposed a new director general would be subject to the public appointments Act but the Government rejected that.

The Minister hand-picked these two individuals. I listened to Government Deputies and Senators yesterday telling people they support the carers, that they are with the carers and that they want the HSE to reverse the cut.

I will give a little tip to Senator Whelan and the others who are concerned about the issue. They should talk to the Minister for Health because he controls the HSE.

Hear, hear.

The buck stops with him. One cannot get away from that. The one solution is to reverse the cut. I do not think any of us, or any Member on the Government side, wants to see cuts that affect carers or people who are badly incapacitated, such as the people yesterday who made a great effort to come to protest outside Leinster House. The cut is being made for the sake of €8 million. If the Government wants to do that then members of Government parties should take responsibility for doing it. They should not blame Tony O’Brien and Ambrose McLoughlin for the cut. The Minister decided on the cut. Fine Gael and the Labour Party decided on the cut. A total of 950,000 home-care hours have been taken out of the system. I will table an amendment to the Order of Business this morning that the Minister for Health-----

Very good.

-----or one of his Ministers of State – I believe he is talking to both of them at the moment, which is good – would come to the House today to tell us what is Government policy on home-care hours. Page 38 of the programme for Government states that not only would the Government retain existing home-care packages but it would increase them. The programme for Government was signed up to by Fine Gael and the Labour Party. Members of those parties should not come to the House crying crocodile tears and tell us that they are railing against the HSE because they are an awful bunch of people who have taken 450,000 home-care hours. I want the Minister to come to the House today. There is ample time. I propose an amendment to the Order of Business, that the Minister for Health, Deputy James Reilly, would come to this House and explain to us whether it is Government policy to cut home-care hours and, furthermore, to ask him to reverse the cut. He has not been too quick to cut consultants’ pay.

That is very populist.

He will not touch the people at the higher end of the scale in the health service, for whom he advocated long enough in his private capacity.

That is not true.

He will not touch them but he will cut people who earn less than €10 an hour.

Senator O’Brien is way over time. I call Senator Bacik.

That is not true.

Perhaps when Senator Bacik gets to her feet she will tell me if it is Labour Party policy to cut home-care hours and whether she, as the leader of the Labour Party group-----

Senator O’Brien is way over time.

-----in the Seanad has asked the Minister, Deputy Reilly, to reverse the cuts to home-care hours.

One should call it as it is.

We have listened to the lecture.

Senator O’Brien. I call Senator Bacik.

A total of 950,000 hours have been cut this year alone. It is an absolute disgrace.