Imelda Munster (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

What is the purpose or responsibility of any Government worth its salt? It is to look after all of its citizens, including the elderly and vulnerable, and to ensure fairness and that people get their rights and entitlements. Again again, successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments have failed the people.

The report from the Attorney General published on Tuesday divides the citizens concerned into two convenient groups, those in public and private nursing homes. However, the report makes no reference to our most vulnerable citizens, that is, those in long-term residential disability care settings. Many of those people depended on the Government of the day to advocate on their behalf and not to deny them their rights. There are three groups of people with disabilities potentially entitled to payments, but only one was paid. The first group comprises those who never applied the scheme because they were advised not to. The second group comprises those who did apply but who were told by a deciding officer they were not entitled to repayment under the scheme and, because of that, did not appeal the decision.

The final group comprises the minority of people who did appeal and ultimately were the only ones to receive what was due to them. They were the ones who were fortunate enough to have an organisation that advocated on their behalf and remained persistent to the end despite barriers put in place by the Government. To not similarly compensate over 8,500 people with disabilities in similar long-term care settings whose entitlements should have been similar but who had nobody advocating on their behalf and to actively work to deny them their entitlements must be the lowest of the low for any Government. Despite Government protestations, it is clear that thousands of patients were unfairly charged for their care, Government after Government and Minister after Minister were happy to keep the public in the dark about this scandal and the Government tried its utmost to deny redress to those thousands of patients.

Now that the Government's policy has been exposed, what steps has it taken to identify those 8,500 people who had money taken from them illegally? If it has started a trawl, although there is no confirmation of this, it is only because it has been exposed. Now the Government has been found out, is it going to continue its policy of protestations and denials? If a person was to take a case today on the same basis as the cases settled, would the Government defend or settle that case? That is the question.

A couple of times, I heard Ministers refer to this as historical. However, there is a scandal that happens day in and day out, yesterday, today and tomorrow. This is the scandal of charging patients in nursing homes who have medical cards for products to which they are entitled free of charge on their medical cards. They are charged for incontinence wear, ointments, wound dressings and occupational therapy and speech therapy, all entitlements they would have free of charge were they living in the community. I have raised this issue numerous times with the HSE and the Department at the Committee of Public Accounts but the HSE could not give a damn about it. In a document I received under freedom of information legislation, the assistant national director for primary care reimbursement service said the primary place where an intervention could be put in to ensure that nursing home clients are not charged for items that would be covered under the medical cards scheme would be via inserting a clause in the document between the HSE and nursing homes that actually states the requirement not to charge. Despite the fact that this statement is two years old and it was raised with the Secretary General of the Department last week, the HSE has still done nothing. This is happening today. Patients with medical cards who are in nursing homes are being ripped off and are not getting their full entitlements. Will the Minister put a stop to that because the HSE could not give a damn?

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