Liam Twomey (Wexford, Fine Gael)

Forcing elderly people to sell their homes to pay for health care is an incredible policy decision for a Fianna Fáil Minister to make. This issue was not discussed in the Dáil. I do not know which of the social partners allowed this decision to go through and the Minister of State has not told us what social partners agree with him on this issue. This is not about regulations. The Minister of State referred to Deputy Howlin introducing regulations but those regulations were very much implemented at the discretion of the chief executive officers of the health boards at that time. The health boards had an enormous amount of latitude. As a Government Minister pushing through legislation, Deputy Seán Power should know that what he is doing here is framing the law. It is not just some regulation or something that can be changed again on a whim. This is legislation and if the Minister of State cannot understand the difference between legislation and regulations, he should not be in the position he occupies.

The Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, has been promising people that they will not have to sell their homes but by next May she may not even be in Dáil Éireann. She certainly will not be in Government. We will be left with blankety blank Fianna Fáil people or maybe an Opposition that cares about what happens to elderly people.

Right now the Minister of State is not giving any protection to elderly patients, who will be forced to sell their homes. He has not answered the fundamental question. It is not a matter of €300,000 or €500,000 for a home in Dublin; it concerns any home. It is 5% of any house of an elderly person living alone. If the Minister of State examines the criteria concerning means, which he surely has done, he knows it will not take a very expensive home before people begin to come under pressure. I estimate that at anything over €100,000 people will be forced to sell their homes. When they run out of funds they will then have to apply to the HSE for subvention.

The Minister of State is telling me to rely on the HSE. Any company that is properly run writes and publishes a corporate governance policy. Can the Minister of State tell me when the HSE's corporate governance policy was published? The HSE has been in operation since 1 January 2005. I ask the Minister of State, who oversees the HSE, to tell us when that policy was written. Then he can tell us to trust that the HSE will bring forward guidelines in six weeks.

The Minister of State is being disingenuous and is trying to throw out untruths about the Opposition. He knows as well as I do that what he is doing with this legislation is going after the homes of old people. He is trying to slip out of it but has been caught out. He tried to slip out of it on Second Stage and on Committee Stage but he got caught out. He is trying to slip out of it again in the House today but we will call votes all morning to see if Fianna Fáil backbenchers will learn to understand.

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