Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

To pick up on some of Deputy Howlin's remarks, I am sure he is aware from his constituency work that the waiting times for home care packages have considerably improved in recent months due to the additional resources that have been provided by Government, with the largest health budget now in the history of the State. When it comes to additional fees for nursing homes, the Minister is working on proposals to ensure greater transparency in that regard in order that people going into a nursing home will know what additional fees they may have to pay for extras and to ensure people only pay extra fees for genuine extras and not as an additional contribution.

On statutory home care, the consultation will be launched this week. It is important we get that right. That is with a view to moving towards a statutory right to home care similar to that which exists with the fair deal scheme. The review of the fair deal scheme is under way at present and the new Minister of State with responsibility for mental health and older people is meeting representatives of Age Action and Nursing Homes Ireland today to discuss this and many other issues.

I am advised that the decision in this case was not a budgetary one, as the scheme is not running over budget, but a clinical one based on the fact one member of the couple did not need nursing home care. However, it was the wrong decision. It was wrong to separate a very elderly couple in this way. It was inhumane and lacked common sense. The Government does not stand over it. We now need to examine why the decision was made in the first place, whether there are other cases, and one would have to surmise that there are other cases, and what we can do to ensure the needs of very elderly couples are assessed together, as they should be, and that they are not separated in this way.

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