Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

The new Bill will allow me to make regulations to change some of the existing criteria in respect of how the family home is calculated and so on. This Bill, which was published yesterday and which we hope will get through the House very quickly, will allow us to make regulations to change the existing manner in which the family home is taken into account as notional income. At present, this puts nursing home subvention care beyond the reach of many people who have an average family home, which is clearly unacceptable.

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