Mr. Ger Deering:

In regard to the medical card issue, we cannot set policy nor tell the Government who to include in a medical card scheme. When the scheme is in place, if people apply and believe they did not get something they would be entitled to under the scheme, that will certainly be something we can deal with.

I will let Ms Hanrahan talk about mental health in particular. In regard to older people generally, it is important for people to know that we can deal with anybody’s complaint at any age. As regards separating them out, I would say one of the problems we have is that sometimes older people are already segregated. For example, if a person has a disability and is 60 years of age, there is a range of services available to him or her. However when the person hits 65 he or she is no longer considered a person with a disability, but an older person, and the services are withdrawn. I would be loath to set up any separate system for older people because we will find that people who have a complaint with the Ombudsman at the age of 64 will suddenly have to take it somewhere else. I am confident that we can deal with complaints from older people about the services. We do not divide people into demographics, statistically, but many of the complaints we have would be from older people directly or from their families, including those in nursing homes. If people do not have the capacity to make a complaint themselves or do not want to do so, they can nominate somebody else. Alternatively, if they do not have the capacity, we can get a certificate to say they do not have capacity and somebody else can then make the complaint on their behalf.

On the nursing home case, even though we gave that as an example, at this stage the vast majority of nursing homes understand the power of the Ombudsman to deal with complaints. That was more of an outlier where somebody did not seem to understand that they had to deal with us. We engage with their representative body, Nursing Homes Ireland. Ms Hanrahan did two webinars last year for nursing homes. They attended to understand what it is. This year, we will issue posters, which we expect nursing homes to put up to tell their residents that if they have a complaint, they can come to the Ombudsman. We certainly will actively engage in that area.

We are also conscious that sometimes the relationship is there and for the residents the nursing home is their home. We have to find a way to make sure residents are comfortable in making a complaint against the place that is their home. We are sensitive to that and how we handle it. We always reassure people that they should come and talk to us and we will deal with any sensitivities they have. However, it is very sensitive for a person when living in the place against which they are making a complaint.