What the $%#$...
Yeah, I don't think I can help. But it's good you posted that, now someone else might be able to explain what to do (or why to give up).
If you didn't look already, there is a bit of info on how to use debhelper 7 here:
http://wiki.maemo.org/Packaging
They listed some required changes to the control and rules file you could try, but I'm not very optimistic. I always end up in dependency hell when trying to do anything.