Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for bringing this Bill before us today. It has been a long time in the offing. There was a lot of discussion on this issue with the previous Government since I was elected in 2016 but it led to little or nothing. Perhaps there was some work going on behind the scenes but it was certainly not being addressed in the manner in which it should have been, so we appreciate the Minister of State bringing this Bill before the House.

The nursing home support scheme, generally referred to as the fair deal scheme, was established in 2009 to provide financial support to eligible residents to help them with the cost of their nursing home care. Residents are required to make a contribution towards the cost of their care depending on their means while the HSE contributes the balance. In 2018, the average rate charged in public nursing homes was €1,564 a week. The agreed average maximum price chargeable for private or voluntary homes was €968 a week. This difference shows that the cost associated with private care homes is 62% less than that associated with public care homes. For 2018, additional funding of €23 million was required from other Exchequer sources to meet such deficits. In 2015, the HSE committed to publishing the weekly cost of care base charge rates for public nursing homes. Charge rates were published for 2016 but not for 2017. Will the Minister of State advise if these weekly cost of care base charges data are being published? If not, why not? It would provide transparency for everyone and not least for patients and their families.

Presently, people using the scheme who are moving into nursing homes contribute up to 80% of their income and up to 7.5% of the value of any assets held towards the costs of their care. The value of a person's home is only included in the financial assessment for the first three years of that person's time in care but this three-year cap does not apply to family-owned, family-operated farms or businesses when costs are calculated. The 7.5% per annum levy means that farmers and business owners face indefinite contributions based on their assets. In some cases, this threatens their very viability. The scheme clearly discriminates against them. The Bill makes no provision for the making of retrospective payments in cases where the farm has been included as an asset in the calculations. This is grossly unfair and must be addressed by the Government. This issue has dragged on for many years and, as such, a retrospective repayment should be made to families. It is a scandal that the resolution to the fair deal scheme has been dragged out for so long. I am not pointing the finger at the Minister of State, but at her predecessors who allowed the issue to drag on for so long.

I also commend the people who work in community hospitals. The staff work so hard. I refer to hospitals in my own constituency, from Schull Community Hospital right over to Kinsale. There are great workers out there but some of these hospitals are not up to HIQA standards. One comes to mind. It is a fabulous hospital which serves a massive area, Clonakilty Community Hospital. The bottom line is that the HIQA standards were meant to apply well before now but the matter has dragged on and on. No matter how good the staff in Clonakilty are, if the building is not corrected and brought up to standard in the same way as other hospitals such as those in Schull, Skibbereen and Castletownbere, where work is ongoing at the moment, that will obviously have a knock-on effect on that local community hospital. Will the Minister of State look into that? I recently had a meeting with the HSE which is saying that it is not on the agenda, which is bad news.

I also thank the Irish Farmers Association, IFA, and the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association, ICMSA, which have worked very hard on the issue of the fair deal scheme and have been pushing this agenda for many years. As Deputy Nolan said earlier, the Rural Independent Group tabled a motion on this matter a few years ago because we saw the need and we saw the difficulties farm families were having because of the unfair way in which the scheme was being rolled out.

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