Seán Power (Kildare South, Fianna Fail)

These amendments relate to a range of interim measures that have been put in place for 2007 and are now being transposed into primary legislation. In brief, the main changes are that levels of dependency no longer exist. Persons are now simply deemed to be dependent or not dependent; in other words, the person needs to be maintained in a nursing home or not and one single maximum subvention rate of €300 has replaced the previous three levels of dependency.

Before Christmas, the Minister for Health and Children announced a new nursing home care support scheme which will be introduced on 1 January next year. The purpose of the changes being introduced for this year is to pave the way towards the new scheme and render an increased number of people eligible for subvention in the short term. An additional €85 million was provided to fund these measures for 2007 and it is expected that approximately 2,000 extra people will benefit from the changes.

Amendments Nos. 14 and 15 are consequential on amendment No. 13 and amendments Nos. 16 and 18 are technical amendments that are necessary on foot of amendment No. 17.

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