Colm Burke (Cork North-Central, Fine Gael)

I thank the Minister of State very much for being available here this morning to deal with these issues. He will be aware that I outlined recently my own involvement in nursing homes going back to 2004. As a result of legal action, the Department of Health ended up having to pay out more than €450 million to 20,000 families.

I am concerned that 40% of the funding currently provided for nursing homes is going to 20% of nursing homes, which are the public nursing homes. That means 60% of the funding is being used to care for 80% of the private patients in private nursing homes. The cost per week for a public nursing home is €1,926 per bed. The cost per week in a private nursing home is €1,250. There is a huge gap.

The issue I want to raise relates to the gap. There is no limitation on the number of nursing homes one group can have. We have a situation in business where in certain areas one cannot acquire a competitor. There are rules and regulations on it. Is it not time to bring in a similar regulation for nursing home management? For instance, would the Department and the HSE be able to deal with the situation if the nursing home group we are talking about, which has approximately 25 nursing homes, decided in the morning to walk away and to close down all 25 nursing homes? I am very concerned about that now because of the issue that has arisen. The standard was appalling, as was the way people were treated. We have a responsibility to look at how we deal with this challenge in the future. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that this could happen. The Department must be aware of it. Going back to the issue I previously raised, relating to 2004, the Department was aware of it for more than 20 years and took no action. We are now aware of this challenge.

I am asking whether the Department is prepared to look at this and bring in the necessary regulation to restrict the percentage of patients it is going to pay for. This is an extremely important issue.