Johnny Brady (Meath, Fianna Fail)

Indeed. I would like to refer to St. Joseph's county nursing home in Trim, County Meath. I have been friends with many of its residents since the time when Meath County Council used to hold its Christmas meetings at St. Joseph's. I have seen the great work that is being done at St. Joseph's, which serves all of County Meath. The marvellous work being done for elderly people in Trim is a credit to the nursing staff of St. Joseph's and particularly to the matrons and former matrons there. However, we cannot turn a blind eye to the failure of some nursing homes to do such great work. We are glad that such shortcomings have been highlighted and we hope they will be stamped out for once and for all. As we saw on our televisions and read in our newspapers, some poor and unfortunate people, who contributed significantly to the economy and made this country what it is today, have been subjected to disgraceful treatment. We must never lose sight of the fact that many people who are now in nursing homes worked in difficult times, when there was no such thing as a booming economy. Many of them went to work on empty stomachs. They worked hard to build the country. It is sad those same people have been neglected in some nursing homes. Shame on those who allowed this to happen.

This year an additional €20 million was allocated to the nursing home subvention scheme for residents of private nursing homes. This represents an increase of 14% over 2005, an estimated spend of €140 million. This additional €20 million will go towards supporting increasing numbers entitled to basic nursing home subventions, reducing waiting lists for enhanced subventions and bringing greater consistency to the different levels of enhanced subvention support.

Regulations were recently made to make the assessment criteria for subventions, not updated since 1993, reflect major changes in property values. The property ceiling that was set at €95,000 in the Nursing Home (Subvention) Regulations 1993 will be increased, having regard to the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government house price indices, to €500,000 for the Dublin area and €300,000 for the rest of the country. The assets ceiling will also be increased to €36,000 from €25,359. Previously, the first €7,618 of an applicant's assets would be disregarded when applying for a subvention. It will be increased to €11,000.

How much time have I left?

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