Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have less than two and a half minutes. I will not take a breath and will stay focused. I have never read a more self-serving report that serves the narrative that has already been determined by the Government, namely that it did nothing and naughty people came forward to look for benefits that they did not deserve and were not based on legislation. Not alone is it done that way, it is also done in a way that is divisive because it asks whether younger people should now be paying for the past. It is also demeaning because it refers to people coming forward and looking for gratuitous nursing home beds.

It is also very misleading and disingenuous because it does not deal with the strategy that was based on the fundamental question of whether people were entitled to nursing home care under section 52 of the existing legislation of 1970. It completely ignores the background to all of this, namely, almost 50 years of complaints encompassing three Ombudsmen from 1985. It was inundated with complaints on both sides, including the private nursing homes, where people had no choice but to go. This Attorney General tells us they had a choice. He does not even look at how they were forced into it. The Ombudsman told us the position is confused and that the key legal point is whether people have an enforceable right to be provided by the HSE. That goes on to tell us there is confusion and uncertainty, which is a hallmark not of the law but of what the Department, Ministers and governments thought the law was saying because it suited them.

We get this report, which is nothing short of shocking. What it does is expose the fact the Attorney General is simply there to advise the Government and has no role in terms of the public interest. He has the cheek to equate the public interest with his analysis of a difficult financial situation and not even highlight the gap that is there, namely, the fact there is nobody there to represent the public interest. In his report, he refers to the Health (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2014. The Minister for Health might help me there because neither I nor my office could find that Act anywhere.

I will stop precisely on time even though I would like to say a lot more. I hope this is the start of a debate on the public interest role of the Attorney General or someone else.

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