Liam Twomey (Wexford, Fine Gael)

The disengagement of Fianna Fáil from any of these issues is also of great concern to the people. In fact, the only political slump that we are seeing at present is how the coalition, of which Deputy Tim O'Malley is a part, is governing the country. Some €340 million will be paid out this year to repay illegal nursing home charges. Some €600 million must be paid out next year.

There is potentially another illegal nursing home charges issues, which I have constantly raised on this side of the House with both Deputy Tim O'Malley and the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, and to which I have never receive a clear answer. This issue is private nursing home charges on those over 70. Every time the Tánaiste has been asked about this, her reply is that the courts will decide. What is our role here in this House? Are we legislators or do we take our diktat from the Supreme Court? The Department of Health and Children officials have expressed concern about this issue, but not one Minister in the past 18 months or two years has shown the leadership he or she is supposed to show in his or her Department or has come in here to tell me that I am wrong about the illegal nursing home charges for private patients in private nursing homes. Not one Minister has come in here to disclose the Department's good advice on this and to state why the Department is standing over this. When the Travers report was discussed in the Joint Committee on Health and Children, we asked about the charges in private nursing homes. The Government has not answered in two years. I suppose this should not surprise us because it has taken the Government 18 months to come to this point.

The Tánaiste stated, when the legislation was first thrown out by the Supreme Court, that both herself and the Taoiseach felt strongly that these repayments should be made quickly because of the age and the vulnerability of the people who are still alive. As Members will be aware, the average length of stay of a person in a nursing home is between two and three years. It will nearly be two years before the Department makes the first repayment, in other words, many of the people of whom we spoke when we first raised this issue are now dead. That is the sort of useless foot-dragging Government we have at present.

This is the last sitting day before the summer recess. During the recess the Minister of State, Deputy Tim O'Malley, might go to the trouble of getting an answer to my question. Deputy Harney's predecessor in the Department of Health and Children, the Minister, Deputy Martin, not having read his briefing documents, told the Joint Committee on Health and Children that he had no responsibility for the illegal nursing home charges. At that time the Minister of State, Deputy Tim O'Malley, acknowledged that he saw the importance of that memo when it was shown to him and maybe he might have the intellectual capacity to come back into this House and tell us whether we are wrong on the issue of the charges for those over 70 in private nursing homes.

Deputy Harney is showing almost the same cavalier attitude of Deputy Martin to what potentially may be a considerable cost to the taxpayer next year. It just goes to show that the Progressive Democrats is infected with the Fianna Fáil virus, that life begins and ends at election time. The Progressive Democrats has shown no consideration for what may happen to the public finances in the future. It has shown no consideration to the people for whom it is supposed to be responsible and that is why I say that the Progressive Democrats ethos does not fit well with looking after the elderly. It has a casual attitude and does not quite understand the concerns of the elderly. It merely see all of this as a routine it must go through. That is why the people are growing tired of it after five years. The people are growing tired of it because it's competence in providing good government is failing day by day.

One of the questions we asked on Committee Stage was why the Government was unable to look within the capacity of the Civil Service to make these repayments. It seems amazing that the HSE has the details of 10,500 people involved who it maintains are still alive and the Minister of State stated that there are approximately 20,000 people involved who are alive. As the HSE identified these 10,500 last December, I am sure it has identified far more since. While, according to the Minister of State, the Department will hand all this information over to a private company, it seems all the company must do is sign the cheques. How difficult could it be for the company to find the remaining people involved? The HSE has more or less done all the hard work for the company, in the case of the people who are alive.

The Department also has probably identified the vast majority of the 40,000 or 50,000 people involved who are deceased. No doubt a significant amount of work has already been done on that by the HSE. The HSE has identified those whose estates must undergo probate because it has already identified what level of resources it will need to do that. A considerable amount of this work has been done.

While the Minister of State stated that the HSE would not have the resources to do this work, and I agree with him for a different reason, what of the other Departments? The Department of Agriculture and Food made significant payments on an annual basis and it does not make those payments any more. The Department of Social and Family Affairs, which is more or less the Government's bank, makes significant payments every week. Is it really beyond the Government to get the heads of these Departments together to see if a solution could be reached, where the civil and public services could provide a significant amount of the resources and back-up to make these repayments, rather than adopt the knee-jerk approach of contracting it out to a company?

I have serious concerns about the HSE. If half of the concerns expressed to me about the HSE are true, we will be back after the next election looking at the Health Act 2004 which established the HSE. I hope the Department of Health and Children stays together and functions well because it looks like it might take over many of the functions of the HSE in the future.

The Tánaiste seems oblivious to what is happening in the HSE. She has really distanced herself to an unbelievable extent. I recognise she is doing it for political reasons. She thinks that any scandal will not stick to her if she sets up all these groups. The HSE has been established almost as a semi-State company with little accountability, and yet the Government seems to be almost trying to ignore the concerns that people are expressing about it.

While we in this House often criticise the parliamentary affairs division, that division is just a manifestation of the wider problems within the HSE. If information encounters a difficulty in flowing back to the chief executive's office which responds publicly to Deputies in this House, what problems are occurring behind closed doors? Ministers need to wake up and smell the coffee because their only role is to run the health service competently. They are supposed to act as chief executive officers of their Departments, not as television stars with big egos jockeying for position within their respective parties. That is why it has taken 18 months for the Government to come close to repaying people who were abused by the State. The Tánaiste should get a move on and make the repayments properly.

Are further problems regarding illegal nursing home charges being covered up? I have raised this issue previously and I will continue to pursue it. The Minister of State should not hide behind the courts. As legislators, we do not have to wait for courts to decide because if problems are identified, we can legislate to address them. Would the Government parties wait, as they almost did, for the courts to decide to allow child rapists to walk free? Is their attitude that cavalier that they do not care and they will wait for a diktat from the Supreme Court when it reaches a decision? The Opposition is concerned about accountability, transparency and good corporate governance. These are buzz words Ministers throw out at press conferences before they run helter skelter when there is trouble. Every strategy and document is launched at a press conference and there is no question of anything being introduced in the House because the Tánaiste is afraid of accountability. However, when she was asked a difficult question at the press conference for the launch of the cancer strategy, the HSE chief executive officer, Professor Drumm, who is not part of the political Executive that is supposed to respond to the people, jumped in to reply.

Ministers are disengaging from their duties and the public and that is why they are losing the confidence of the people. I recently watched a television programme about Margaret Thatcher's government. Her Ministers became so arrogant and incompetent towards the end, I had a sense of déjÀ vu as I was reminded of the behaviour of our Ministers. The people are concerned about health, justice, crime and public expenditure. The issue of illegal nursing home charges has been discussed thoroughly but the Government has been damn slow to address it. Are Ministers trying to cover up more banana skins in this regard because they are afraid to acknowledge they may have been responsible for incurring a significant liability on behalf of the taxpayer as well as treating vulnerable elderly people in a cavalier manner?

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