Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will not keep the delegates long. I am conscious that this has been a long session and that they have been here for longer than I have.

On the question of vulnerability, we should not hesitate to acknowledge the fact that we will all become vulnerable as we grow older. People are in nursing homes precisely because they are vulnerable. That is why this is an important debate. Mr. Redmond was kind to acknowledge and clarify this, but it was probably not necessary for him to do so.

I return to the question of extending the eligibility criteria to include a situation where land is leased. I apologise if I am cutting stubble. On the one hand, the tax incentives for long-term leases are to achieve the particular policy objective of promoting land mobility. Mr. Redmond considered the different policy objective of ensuring families could be enabled to continue farming a productive asset. He stated these were two different policy objectives and that he was considering them together. Speaking about family vulnerability, I am somewhat close to this problem, but I do not know how extensive it is. However, it seems that families sometimes lease land in order to be able to continue farming a productive asset. I am thinking of people who are caring for a person in the home. While it might become a more challenging task, they might want to continue to do so for as long as is possible. It might be in contemplation of the possibility that at some point in the future nursing home care might be required. One might have a situation where a family would prefer to lease land for a period to allow them to focus on the provision of care and cope with something that could be challenging. However, they are prevented from doing so because if they have leased land, at some point in the future when they seek to avail of nursing home care, they will not be able to avail of the cap. Is that not an anomaly? Is it not very unfair? Does Mr. Healy agree with me that it is one of the possible range of scenarios that might arise? Is it correct that there may be cases where people want to lease land precisely to postpone the day when they will need to avail of nursing home care? This is an issue that needs to be taken into account. What is the fundamental objection to extending the eligibility criteria to include leased land?