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

I want to set out that this is no doubt quite a complicated issue, spans four or five decades and is somewhat opaque as to the interpretation of the care that should be given to our citizens. In this case we are talking about long-stay nursing home care. The central tenet to the critique the Attorney General has set out, and I and others would argue this point, is that those who had an obligation to receive care were subjected to an imposition of charges with regard to that care. That is, as I say, open to interpretation.

Some families went to court and others did not and that was in respect of the resources of those families. There is no doubt that families went through very significant financial hardship in respect of those decades that have passed. It was policy to bring families through the courts and so be it. The report of the Attorney General, which I read this morning, and I do not generally read documents of that nature, says the Government’s position stands up legally, but I do not believe it stands up morally, where families were denied care that should be given to them.

There has been a strategy by successive governments and by the Department of Health to counter litigation, and that could have a very detrimental effect on those families trying to seek justice and redress on this issue. Families were short-changed; of that there is no doubt. Also, however, in the public interest and in the public realm, society was also short-changed in respect of this entire issue, to say the least. Successive governments and Ministers have put compensation and redress at arm’s length, of which there is no doubt also. Looking at this objectively, families who should have been given this care and redress were made sweat and compensation was very difficult to obtain.

We have seen wrongs in the State in how people were brought through the courts. To say the justice was arbitrary is an understatement. Were families let down? It is indisputable that they were. Whatever the Attorney General says, whatever successive Ministers have said, and whatever the Government says at the moment, families were let down in their time of need. When these families needed that help in respect of care, which is a simple obligation of the State, they were made pay both financially and in hardship terms. There are still a great number of questions in respect of this issue and families deserve those answers, not just over the next three months but over the lifetime of this Government.

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