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

The Government acknowledges that nursing homes have been badly affected by Covid, that income is down and that costs are up. In response to that, we established a Covid-19 temporary assistance payment scheme. That was set up back in April. Applications opened on 17 April. The core concept of the scheme is that the State will provide additional funding to nursing homes that require it to contribute to their additional costs associated with Covid-19, and to the costs of dealing with mitigation and outbreak management where that occurs. Eligible costs include both additional payroll and non-payroll Covid-19-related costs. The scheme was originally to operate only for three months to the end of June but it was extended to the end of September. The scheme is now being further extended to the end of 2020 and for the first six months of 2021. This additional funding will run through at least until the middle of next year.

I appreciate what the Deputy said about smaller nursing homes, especially in rural areas, which because of their scale may have higher costs. This needs to be taken into account also. If she has individual cases she would like the Minister or me to look into, to the extent that we can, we would be happy to do so.

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