Ms Emily O'Reilly:

I will respond first to Deputy Boyd Barrett. The critical role is accountability. My office is a form of accountability. There is an accountability circle which is completed by the work of the Joint Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions. In 99.9% of cases, accountability is secured though my office. Public bodies make recommendations and when they are not implemented I come to the Oireachtas. Assuming the committee accepts my analysis and recommendations, I assume it would complete the accountability circle by doing whatever needs to be done - for example, calling people before it and seeking reports.

On the issue of illegal nursing home charges and the fact that settlements are now being offered, we have tried on many occasions, going back many years, to see the legal advice under which the Department of Health is operating, but the Department has always refused to give it to us. The officials say they are sure they do not have a liability to people who were effectively forced into expensive private nursing home care. We take a different view. Ultimately the courts will decide. It has not got to that stage because settlements are being entered into. Again, we tried to get information on the settlements and the basis on which they were made. We got very little information on that either. They say it is entirely legitimate for the settlements to be confidential; however, we take a different view, as this is not a matter of private litigation. This is expenditure of public money on settlements we cannot know about as individuals. It also discriminates between one set of individuals who have the capacity, the know-how, the money and the courage to go to court to seek redress and those who may be on their own and do not know how to do it. We believe that is not an acceptable way to act.

Deputy Mulherin queried whether the Department accepts that it has breached the Equal Status Act. I do not think there is any doubt that it does, and we can give the Deputy the entire correspondence if she wants that. Much of it is contained in our reports. In regard to the mobility allowance, the Department accepted completely that the upper age limit of 65 was wrong. Several years ago the motorised transport grant issue went before the Equality Tribunal and the Department had got rid of the age cap before a ruling was made. There is no issue in that regard. The HSE and the Department of Health made payments in one case on the issue of the upper age limit, which is an acceptance that no age limit applies.

My colleague Mr. Butler can clarify how many motorised transport grant cases the HSE is dealing with, and he can tell us whether it is confined to County Donegal.