Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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Our function is to protect the legal rights of the citizens and taxpayers who pay into the nursing homes support scheme fund, otherwise known as the fair deal scheme, which finds its way to public, private and voluntary nursing homes and which has been the subject of considerable comment and controversy as we have said repeatedly in recent times. When private nursing homes interact with the National Treatment Purchase Fund, which administers taxpayers' money, they have to do so on an individual basis. To act collectively is illegal. We are all about observing the letter of the law. I find this letter from Mr. Daly quite extraordinary and unacceptable. It is unacceptable that he is refusing to come in and assist the committee with our deliberations. We have in our possession not an extract of minutes but the complete minutes of a meeting that Mr. Daly convened on 23 October 2015. It was with three partners from Eversheds who are Nursing Homes Ireland's legal advisers. Mr. Brian McEnery, who is the serving chairperson of the board of HIQA, which regulates nursing homes, was also in attendance at that meeting. The provenance and authenticity of the minutes of the meeting have not been challenged anywhere so far as I can see. The minutes were signed off on by Dermot McEvoy who was in attendance at the meeting and who is a partner with Eversheds.