Mr. Niall Redmond:

When looking at this amendment, we used the outcome, findings and recommendations of the review in 2015. Some submissions that were made to the review group during that process are being used, such as those from the Irish Farmers Association. Our primary aim in this has been to try to address the recommendation of the fair deal review regarding farm and business assets. We have to be cognisant, when addressing that, that we do not create a difficulty for the scheme and undermine its sustainability. We do not look at it on the basis of an approach to revenue raising. This change increases the cost to the scheme itself and we have had to take that into account in our discussions with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and in our own assessment of how this might work in practice. Those considerations have to be part of any good policy assessment process. Our primary concern has been to address the review findings in a way that protects the scheme and delivers on the policy intent and recommendations of the review.

The HSE is largely able to manage issues that arise within the existing framework. Various safeguards are built into the scheme as it currently stands. The Deputy has mentioned cashflow and the potential of people having to sell assets to meet the cost of their nursing home care. A mechanism built into the scheme is the ability for people to take out ancillary State support, the nursing home support loan, which allows people's contribution based on their assets to be covered through a loan from the HSE, which means that they do not necessarily have to sell property when they go into care. Other safeguards are built into that, especially regarding the family home. When somebody leaves the scheme and the loan has to be repaid, there are mechanisms for where there is a partner or child, and some other conditions when people are living in the family home, such that repayment of the loan can be deferred for the time that that person lives in the home. That safeguard protects against the family home being sold from under somebody. Aside from the work that we have done on the heads of Bill, going back to 2007 and 2008, then the eventual introduction of the Act in 2009, there was much consideration of safeguards. The nursing home loan provides an opportunity for people to be able to continue to avail of nursing home care if, for example, they have a high-value asset without having to sell that asset. That important safeguard has existed since the beginning of the scheme.