Nursing care charges to be made legal
Charges levied on patients in long-term nursing care will finally be made legal this week when legislation is rushed through the Dáil, it emerged tonight.
In a “good will gesture” the Government is to make ex gratia payments of up to €2,000 to all 20,000 patients currently in public institutions, leading to costs of up to €4m.
The move follows the revelation last week that the practice of taking money from such patients was not legally sound.
But because the charges were applied in good faith, the Government is not compelled to pay out compensation. Only legal proceedings initiated against the Government before 5pm tonight will be valid.
Although the Government was only made aware of the anomaly last month, it emerged that the Department of Health had known of it for two years.
The ex gratia payments will be advertised and overseen by the new Health Service Executive when it is established in January.
They will apply to all those currently in long-stay residential accommodation, including psychiatric hospitals and units for patients with intellectual and/or physical disability.
Elderly patients living in such circumstances have been charged around €6,500 a year – 75% of their pension. These charges, having been halted last week, will be reinstated as soon as the Bill is passed on Thursday night.
Successive Governments have operated on the basis that it is fair that those receiving long term care should make some payment towards accommodation and daily living costs.
A Government spokesperson said the ex gratia payments were “a good will gesture to acknowledge that the basis on which payments were taken was not legally sound.”
He added: “As soon as the Tanaiste realised the full extent of the situation she moved very quickly.”
Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny welcomed the commitment to pay some measure of recompense to those illegally charged.
But he said he would be unable to decide whether the Government’s proposal represents a fair deal until the full text of the legislation is published. “To further assist in that assessment the Tánaiste should publish her Department’s analysis on the number of people illegally charged and the amount of revenue illegally raised,” he said.
“Also, there still remains the question of why the Department of Health failed to act sooner on the information they had to hand regarding the flawed legal basis on which these pensioner’s charges were being levied.”
He questioned why no action had been taken until Fine Gael pressed the Taoiseach and the Tanaiste repeatedly on the matter in the Dail.
Labour Party health spokesperson Liz McManus said the Government’s proposal to take all stages of the legislation through the Dáil in a single day was “totally unacceptable” and contrary to all the established parliamentary procedures.
“This raises fundamental questions about the competence of the government and its gross failure to respond to legal advice given to it in early 2003 drawing attention to serious legal problems about the charging regime then in place,” she said.
