Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

He has not at any time presented to answer questions on this matter specifically in the House. These are statements which are taking place today and, despite our appeal on the Order of Business this morning, the Minister is not making himself available for questions, of which there are many. Last week and the week before, he did the same, putting the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, in the front position for the Adjournment debate and for oral questions on this matter. The Minister did not take the questions on the fair deal. With all due respect to the Minister of State, Deputy Lynch, the buck does not stop at her desk; it stops at the Minister's.

The Minister has not been shy about speaking to the media in a selective manner about the fair deal crisis but he refuses to make himself fully accountable to the Dáil on the matter. That, I regret to say, is a bad start for a new Minister and a far cry from the openness and accountability he vehemently demanded when he was a particularly effective Opposition voice marking the previous Minister for Health and Children. We had hoped that last week's ministerial questions would clarify matters but they did not do so. We then had the statement from Minister yesterday that his inquiries into HSE spending on the fair deal scheme are not yet completed. His review that was reported last Friday has not provided the full clarity needed, as he repeated in his contribution today. There should be an elaboration on this aspect in the closing remarks.

Meanwhile, hundreds of older people whoshould be in nursing homes are languishing in acute hospital beds. The Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, could not give us an accurate figure last week but it is estimated that approximately 500 older people are inappropriately holding acute beds in a public hospital system that is already stretched to the absolute limit. As of January this year, over 1,600 acute and continuing care public hospital beds are closed, mainly due to cutbacks and staff shortages. Therefore, the knock-on effect of this crisis in the care of older people is very far-reaching, and not just for those people and their families. The longer this situation drags on, the worse the bed shortage in our already over-stretched hospitals will become. Let us hope we are now looking at the prospect of an end to the current crisis.

On top of all this, we have the deplorable revelations about the ill-treatment of people in the Rostrevor nursing home in Rathgar. The approval of applications under the fair deal scheme should have resumed by now. It is not justifiable that they were suspended. Instead, we have older people and their families in great distress and gravely concerned about the future. It is the Minister's job to clear up the confusion and tell us and, more importantly, to tell older people and their families, the full facts and that this is being resolved and will not re-present over the remainder of this year. Can he give us those guarantees?

On Wednesday, 18 May, it emerged in the media that the HSE had informed hospitals that funding allocated for the fair deal scheme in 2011 was running out, even though we were only in the fifth month of the year. These reports naturally spread huge concern among older people and their families, including people already availing of the fair deal scheme and those who had applied or would be applying for it. We acknowledge that the positions of those already catered for under the fair deal were not at risk, as the assurances stated. Age Action reported it was inundated with telephone calls from concerned older people as, I am sure, were Deputies across the Chamber. I experienced some such calls, from callers in tears. It was a very difficult time and has not ceased.

On 20 May the Minister for Health issued a statement in which he claimed that €100 million in funding for the fair deal scheme had been used for other purposes, specifically ancillary services, including therapies and drugs. The Minister stated there was "tremendous confusion"between the HSE and his Department. Has that confusion been addressed and sorted to his satisfaction? He spoke of "some very strange figures coming through from various parts of the HSE". Amazingly, he spoke of "confused messaging" and stated that money which belonged to one sub-head had been spent on others. We are speaking here about tens of millions of euro of public money.

There was a sigh of relief when the Minister stated the fair deal scheme would recommence approving applications but that relief was short-lived. I, too, contacted the HSE, specifically those involved in the processing of the applications, only to be told that they were not being processed or progressed. I welcome the Minister's announcement today although some examination of it is required. I hope the announcement will hold up and that from Monday next all new approvals will secure access to nursing home places.

I refer to the sequence of events. The HSE was reported as stating it had not yet recommenced approving applications for the fair deal scheme as it was still seeking clarity on the funding issue from the Department of Health. The HSE also stated it was not the case that money was diverted from where it should have been spent, as had been claimed by the Minister. The Minister and the HSE were contradicting one another, feeding into the confusion across the wider public. This is about the vital matter of the care of older people and such confusion is simply not acceptable. There is no question that everything was heading towards a crisis and that is what we have experienced.

The pressure on the fair deal scheme in the past year has already led to the situation I described, with increasing numbers of delayed discharges of older people from hospitals. These are older people kept in hospital beds longer than is medically necessary because there are no nursing home places for them to go. Will the Minister take and respond to questions in his summary contribution today? Will applications from some 500 people in acute hospital beds be fast-tracked under a resumed fair deal scheme as of Monday? Will they quickly secure nursing home placements?

On 31 May there was the revelation that more than 4,600 people have had their applications for the fair deal scheme processed and are awaiting final approval. Is the Minister in a position to deal with that number of cases? That was the figure only to 31 March. What is the actual number of people waiting for approval of their applications?

The Minister also confirmed that when the scheme recommences approving applicants it will be at a slower pace than up to now. Will he consider this statement and clarify it? I pay tribute to Age Action and the organisation Older and Bolder which have constantly raised these issues. I welcome what the Minister announced in the Chamber today and the fact that he has chosen to use the Chamber-----

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