Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

-----although it should have been reviewed. It may be that it could or could not be reviewed but the situation always applied. I understand why the Opposition sees this as an opportunity to scourge members of the Government as being in some way responsible for concocting this out of their evil minds. We can then look back and claim against everybody. The whole country will eventually end up claiming for something that should have been done at the time for want of there being a policy in place to deal with it.

What then happened was the excess accommodation required was dealt with by the health boards by way of applying for beds in private nursing homes. Only the overspill was then transferred to the private sector in a way that would meet accommodation requirements. It was not always sufficient but it was an attempt to deal with a situation that was running out of control. We can say otherwise in retrospect but it should not be forgotten that retrospection applies to everything that any government did in any case. We need to realise that. In that situation, we were not the richest country in the world as we claim to be now. We are still not but we certainly were not at that stage. An attempt was made to accommodate people and a charge was applied by the health boards for nursing homes. The reason for that was there were complaints from members of the public who said that some people were making a profit off the situation that was in operation. I do not know whether they were but all we could do at that particular time was try to accommodate people's needs as they were at that stage, where they might not have had anybody to look after them.

When a situation arose where nobody was around to look after the family, something had to be done. A charge was then thought of, similar to the old age pension, or part or three quarters of it or whatever, in return for which pocket money was given to patients at the time. As the Ceann Comhairle will recall, we objected to that at the time. It seemed punitive but there was no other way of getting the accommodation at that time. We were between a rock and a hard place. I am not accepting responsibility for one moment for Government policy because, at that stage, I was a backbencher almost all of the time. However, I was a member of the health board and subject to its policy.

See this speech in context