Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

With regard to the cases to which I referred, there was a lawyer from Cork on the radio a few weeks ago, who may be associated with one of the parties in the House, who has taken on a number of cases on the nursing home and private nursing home issue. That matter was also dealt with in this advice. He is not the only one, but he is on public record as indicating that he was taking cases. I have been told by the Attorney General that there are a large number of other cases pending.

I will abide by and respect the decision of the Supreme Court in the manner in which we will set about making the repayments. However, I must be honest and admit that I am keen to use the statute of limitations if possible because this is an enormous bill. As the Travers report made clear, there was broad support for the concept of charging for shelter and maintenance going back to 1947 and no Government in office since then saw fit to remove the capacity to charge for shelter and maintenance. The tragedy is that this was not legislated for.

On the issue of legal advices, as the report indicates, in 1978 there was clear legal advice from Ronan Keane and Thomas McCann to the then Eastern Health Board which said that legislation was necessary. Even going back that far, it was clear legislation was necessary. It is a shame that the legislation was never passed to make legal a very good principle, which is what we are talking about here.

The meeting in December 2003 made the right decision and the people who attended that meeting cannot carry the can for anything wrong that happened. The issue was raised by the CEO of the then South Eastern Health Board. Note was taken of his concerns and a commitment was given that legal advice would be sought from the Attorney General. Subsequent to the meeting a group was put together and it drew up a document and a letter to be sent to the Attorney General. That letter never issued. The minutes of the meeting of the following March — when the next meeting took place with the CEOs and the management committee — state that legal advice was being sought, which was untrue. The next meeting was in October 2004 where it was stated that legal options were being explored, which again was untrue. To be honest, the situation is rather bizarre.

If we could have legislated for this matter a number of years ago, the mess we are now in would never have happened. We will seek to make it as easy as possible for people to go through the scheme we will establish rather than pursue the legal route. I want the taxpayers' moneys that we will pay to go to the elderly and their needs, not to the interests of the legal profession, with all due respect to that profession. I want to make it as easy as possible for people to access the scheme. Now that some of the issues are becoming clearer, I hope to be in a position to bring that memorandum to the Government for 6 April so that we can make a decision and a subsequent public announcement.

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