Seán Power (Kildare South, Fianna Fail)

Deputy McManus's amendment proposes doing just that by increasing the principal private residence threshold to €500,000 for the entire country.

In responding to the Deputies' proposals it is crucial that I clarify a certain point in taking into account a property for the purposes of considering subvention applications. When carrying out financial assessment for the purpose of subvention, the applicant's home is not taken into account in certain circumstances. Examples of this include where it is occupied by a spouse, a child under 21 years of age, a child in full-time education or a relative in receipt of certain social welfare payments or where taking 5% of the value of the residence into account could give rise to destitution or homelessness of a person closely connected to the applicant. The last provision is a new one which was not contained in the regulations and allows the HSE discretion to take into account exceptional circumstances if and when they arise. If none of these situations applies, 5% of the imputed value of the person's principal private residence is taken into account as part of the financial assessment. This 5% is imputed in all such cases regardless of the value of the property and the thresholds on property were updated in the Nursing Homes (Subvention) (Amendment) Regulations 2005 from €95,000 for the whole country to €500,000 and €300,000 for the Dublin area and the rest of the country, respectively. It is, therefore, not proposed to accept these amendments as we used the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government house price data to reach the figures of €300,000 and €500,000 and also used its definition of the Dublin area, so we intend to keep both of these for the purpose of consistency.

The funding of long-term care was mentioned on the different Stages of the Bill. We have given the matter serious consideration and it has been examined inside out. I realise there is an issue to be tackled, and we will do so. There are proposals before Cabinet and it will make decisions on them in the near future.

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