Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I am absolutely gobsmacked. What Ms O'Reilly has described is shocking in the extreme.

I was familiar with the scandal of medical card holders effectively being robbed by the State and the State then trying to retrospectively legalise it. It is shocking and outrageous but, oddly, not surprising that this is the culture in Departments. It gives new meaning to the expression that there is one law for them and one law for the rest of us. This behaviour strikes at the heart of people's confidence in our democratic system and the State and drives people around the twist when they witness this level of injustice and flagrant disregard for the law and the rights of citizens. It is interesting that, consistent with the three examples given by the Ombudsman, all the people affected are vulnerable. They are disabled or elderly people and the State or the Government thinks it can get away with ignoring them and denying them their rights by flouting the law because they are in nursing homes or disabled and do not have the capacity to kick up or back against their mistreatment. It is always the most vulnerable who are mistreated in this way and we have to do something about it because it beggars belief.

This is not the just about the immediate issue the Ombudsman has raised relating to the mobility allowance scheme and the motorised transport grant. The issue of the Who Cares? report remains unresolved. It is shocking that people have had the right since 1970 to be provided with long-stay care, yet that right has been systematically denied by successive Governments and the Department of Health for decades. When this was brought to their attention, they tried to kill it through a legal strategy to prevent cases ever reaching the courts and, according to the Ombudsman, when they are pushed to it, by making individual settlements and demanding as a condition of settlement that claimants be gagged and never speak about what happened. That is Stalinist. The comparison with eastern Europe is not inappropriate in this context. If the committee has any role to play, it is precisely to provide the opportunity for people who have been mistreated by the State in this way to have their voices expressed and for us to hold the State and the Government to account.

Deputy Noel Harrington has said there are limits to what the committee can do and that may the case in the context of its formal powers, but the issue is what we should decide to do. Perhaps it is not up to the Ombudsman to comment on this. If issues are brought out into the open, the people responsible are brought before the committee and an opportunity is given to those affected by these injustices to speak out whereby we provide a focus for them, we can begin to move them along. We have witnessed how this has been done by other groups in society, including recently by disability groups. Some officials might have hoped they would go gently into the night with certain things being done to them. If we provide that focus, we could get justice on this issue. If the State cannot afford to uphold the law or people's rights, officials should say this and it should be debated openly, with the Dáil being enabled to make a decision on what it thinks. There should not be an attempt to hide this and pretend the problem does not arise, as appears to have happened in this case. I do not know what the Ombudsman thinks we can do, but, at a minimum, the Minister and top officials in the Department of Health should appear before the committee. I fail to see why we should not invite former Ministers for Health who were around when all of this was going on. This was going on for decades and they should be held to account on these matters also.

Again, it may be difficult for the Ombudsman to say what she thinks about this question, but I wonder about the apparent divergence of opinion between the HSE on the specifics of the mobility allowance scheme and the motorised transport grant and its willingness to implement them and the Minister or the Department that states we cannot afford it and, therefore, they will not implement them. What is happening? Who is winning out in that scenario? Is the HSE making the decision on how the eligibility criteria are applied or are the Minister and the Department winning out to flout and disregard the law? Does the HSE have the upper hand in the delivery of the scheme?