Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I welcome this debate about the fair deal scheme. I agree with the merits of the motion in its entirety. It is imperative that we plan for generational demographic changes which will happen over the next 13 years. The population of over-75s is set to double. One of the hardest decisions anybody could make in his or her life is to send a loved one to a nursing home. That is a very traumatic and emotional time for the family and the person who is going into the nursing home.

There is another narrative here that I would like to bring up about nursing homes generally and the privatisation of nursing homes. At present, 76% of all nursing homes are privately run. It is projected that in the next 20 years all long-term nursing homes will be completely privately run. This was facilitated by two ghosts of the past in this House, namely former Deputy Mary Harney and former Deputy Charlie McCreevy. Former Deputy Mary Harney was the instigator of the fair deal scheme in 2009, and I think its primary purpose was to ensure the privatisation of elderly care in Ireland. We had a debate last night about waiting lists. They are terrible. I stipulated that the reason why so much privatisation is seen in this country goes back to an Act which the Minister for Finance at that time, Charlie McCreevy, introduced, giving serious tax breaks for developers of private hospitals and private nursing care centres. We are living with that legacy today. It is estimated that since 2001 and 2002, those developers have been subsidised by €10 billion in the form of tax breaks in the subsequent years.

All of this removes the duty of care from the State to the private developers. It is quite big business. For example, last year, the ten biggest companies that provide private health care in nursing homes got €53 million from the HSE from the fair deal scheme. We support the motion, but the narrative that I have is that this goes back to the privatisation of public health care. It may be a fair deal, but it is not a cheap deal.

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