Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

The principle of what was involved in this case, namely, the charging for shelter and maintenance in public institutions, was held by the Supreme Court to be constitutional. The issue which is not constitutional is the taking away of someone's property rights without adequate compensation. When the debate took place before Christmas, I told the House that I believed the charges were levied in good faith. In other words, those who levied the charge felt it was legally defensible. As I said in my earlier statement, I would not now stand over those comments.

This issue goes back to 1976. On the one hand Deputy Twomey states that this goes back to 2001 and, on the other, asks if I intend to use the Statute of Limitations which covers the past six years. In the McInerney case in 1976, the Supreme Court upheld that it was unconstitutional to levy these charges without legislation. The manner in which it was sought to get around that was the use of a circular. Whatever about the good faith of doing so in 1978, we now know, as a result of the discovery during the preparation for this case, that the former Chief Justice, Mr. Ronan Keane, and a counsel called Mr. McCann, gave legal advice to the contrary.

Since then there have been 11 Governments and at least 12 or 13 Ministers for Health and 40 health boards. I took legal advice when the issue was raised by Deputies Kenny and Perry and I acted immediately on that legal advice. However, according to Deputy Ring I am supposed to resign. I am further accused of not listening to the Opposition. However, Deputy McManus, an Opposition Deputy, stated in her letter to the President that this was unconstitutional under Article 15.5, but the Supreme Court ruled that it was constitutional under Article 15.5 but that it was unconstitutional under property rights provisions. Even if the debate in this House had gone on for months——

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