Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

He is leaving again. Good, at least that is a promise kept, not like the one on the Monaghan Hospital issue on the last day before he left office as Minister for Health and Children.

The Health (Repayment Scheme) Bill 2006 at last provides a legal framework for a scheme to repay charges to fully eligible people who were wrongly charged for publicly funded long-term residential care. Progress has been far too slow on the part of Government in repaying people on whom these long-term care charges were illegally imposed. It contrasts greatly with the expeditious way in which the Minister moved forward to regularise the exacting of payment from people resident in long-term nursing care.

It is well over a year since the courts confirmed that people had been wrongly charged and therefore were entitled to refunds. Legislation and the scheme to repay the money wrongly taken were promised for this time last year. This is the legislation.

The Bill confirms that repayments will be made to those who were wrongly charged and are still living, and payments will be made to the estates, usually the nearest surviving next of kin, of those who were wrongly charged and who have died since 9 December 1998. I understand that is the intent.

The Government has stated this Bill will become law before the end of May and I want the Minister of State, Deputy Seán Power, or the Minister, whoever is delivering the summation of Second Stage, to clarify with certainty the intent to ensure the passage of the legislation and, hopefully, the early initiation of the process of repayment.

I note the Government has already promised that repayments will start shortly after the passage of this Bill but this, of course, is dependent on the Health Service Executive appointing a private company to administer the scheme. At this juncture, I seek clarification on the need to contract out this work. Does the Health Service Executive lack the resources to administer the scheme? The HSE has already invited people to submit details to it if they think they will qualify for repayment. There is obviously a great number of these as they include the next of kin of those who have died in the period to which I have already referred.

In reply to a parliamentary question from myself in October last, the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, stated that a national helpline had been set up by the Health Service Executive to allow people to register if they believed they or a family member were due a repayment. Up to the date she answered, in October last, she indicated that some 18,000 applications had been registered with the HSE. She stated the helpline would continue to operate and further stated there was no need for anyone who had already been in contact to make further contact, that ultimately the system which would be put in place would initiate the follow through to the initial contact by the applicant parties.

I understand the helpline is continuing to operate. In the summation contribution from the Government side, perhaps the Minister of State, Deputy Seán Power, or his colleagues would indicate the updated numbers of people who have contacted the helpline in the period since October last so we will know exactly the figures we are now considering.

If a private company is contracted for the work of making the repayments, are we to presume the data built up to which I have already referred by the Health Service Executive will be transferred to this company? Surely the private contractors would not need to start from scratch. Perhaps the Minister of State, Deputy Seán Power, would give us an indication of the transition involved if a private company is to anchor the process of repayment entitlement, assessment and the initiation of the repayments.

We are told that repayments are due to approximately 20,000 people who are still alive and that approximately a further 40,000, perhaps even up to 50,000, estates will benefit.

The bottom line in all of this is that elderly people were illegally charged and must now be reimbursed with the minimum of further delay and bureaucracy. It is no exaggeration to state that it is clear to everyone, and must be an embarrassment to those on the Government side, that there has been such a delay in bringing this legislation forward and initiating the repayment schedules. The tragedy is that the State's shabby treatment of older people under a succession of Governments has caused a great deal of distress. I doubt there is a Deputy who has not become aware of that within his or her constituency.

The Government's handling of this particular repayment scheme has caused enormous confusion and worry. People, especially older people in residential care and their families, have been and are worried about it. Proper adequate information must be made available to the public to ensure any confusion remaining is ended quickly. There must be clarity before the scheme gets up and running and everyone, including elected representatives, must secure all the detail of the methodology of application, processing et al. It is extremely important that such matters are addressed speedily. We need to know the steps beyond the helpline and I hope all that information will be shared quickly.

The issue has also raised many questions about the way the State supports or fails to support older people in long-term residential care. The National Economic and Social Forum published a report in November last entitled Care for Older People, with which the Minister of State, Deputy Seán Power, will be familiar and which did not get the attention it deserved. It describes the barriers to the development of community services for older people and it refers to perverse investment incentives. It states:

The present official funding of services is not consistent with the policy objective of encouraging community-based responses. Considerable resources are invested in nursing home care responses, some of which are unnecessary and inappropriate.

That is relevant to the debate. Bungling by the State resulted in people in nursing homes being wrongly charged and a huge bill was incurred by the Exchequer, which this legislation is designed to meet. The National Economic and Social Forum exposes the fact that in failing to support community-based care fully, the Government is denying older people the most appropriate care and, at the same time, spending large sums on inappropriate nursing homes places. In addition, the private nursing home sector is being subsidised through large tax breaks.

I urge the Minister to produce accessible, clear and legible material to explain the repayment scheme fully. It must be presented in a clear and understandable way, without the forbidding and complex constructions of the census form, which will have caused a great deal of concern, particularly for older people. As public representatives, we are a buffer in this instance between the State and the wider community, for which the legislation is intended. We need to assist people at every step and to explain to them in clear terms what are their entitlements and what they need to do to claim them. Perhaps, when the Minister of State replies, he will elaborate on this detail. It is important that the debate should ensure a complete understanding and awareness of the process from start to finish and that nobody is left out of the frame.

Will the Minister of State indicate whether it is intended to set a timeframe on the application process for repayment? That is an important issue because people may present later for a variety of reasons such as confusion or disagreement with next of kin and so on. The scheme should be open ended or, at least, the expiry date for applications should be well down the road so that nobody is left out and feels disadvantaged as a result. Given the many years of illegal charging, a long period should be provided to allow people to explore and pursue their entitlements properly.

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