Liam Twomey (Wexford, Fine Gael)

The Government should make it quite clear how this money will be used. A number of areas seek long-term care facilities. The Minster of State should consider the case of the community hospital in Dingle, a nice area to visit in the summer. The long-stay care facility in that hospital takes up three floors, with elderly male patients on the ground floor and elderly female patients on the first floor. The lay-out of the top floor is exactly the same as it was during the famine when patients used to sleep on straw. The straw used to be kicked out of doors on the gable wall.

The Minister of State should demonstrate that such facilities are going to be changed with the money donated to this account. Stating what projects the money will be used for may encourage people to make these donations of the money repaid. At present people believe this money will return to the Government and be lost in Exchequer funding.

The Minister of State should ensure that mistakes made during the benchmarking process are not repeated in this case. All records of deciding how people received benchmarking awards were shredded and we will never know why some grades received 17% and others 5%. This information should be accurately gathered and stored carefully so we know how the repayment was calculated. Estates and elderly patients should also receive an explanation of how the refunds were calculated. This would be a sign of good governance and accountability in the administration of the scheme. It would be a first for the Department as the Government has removed much legislation that would make it accountable to the people.

A section of the legislation refers to appeals and this should be the only reason for a delay in payment. The appeals process should be managed by the public services. The Department of Social and Family Affairs deals with appeals on a regular basis, as does the HSE. I see no need for the appeals process to go to a private company. If these appeals go on for too long — we will wait until the Minister tells us about the new scheme set up to administer it — it could be a nice earner for some company for a long time into the future. Appeals processes could go on forever and this company would administer them indefinitely because, as I have already stated, there is no finite date to limit how long this company will operate. The appeals process should return to the public service and should not be part of the contract for the company that administers this. The company should make its decision and hand over all its records to the HSE, which can handle the appeals process using its expertise in social welfare. Otherwise this could continue ad infinitum at great cost to the taxpayer.

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