David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It needs to be done very quickly. I have seen the 2011 memo which is quite explicit in stating that there are other residents in similar homes who would have a similar if not identical entitlement to the 512 people in those three homes. I accept that the potential liability of €350 million as stated in the memo is a worst-case scenario; it is just an estimation. However, it is very clear that when that memo was written, the Department had knowledge of people who had exactly the same entitlement as those 512 people had. It is an issue of fairness. The Secretary General of the Department of Health said yesterday that while many of these issues are unfair, they are policy issues. It rests with the Minister and the Government to deal with this once and for all. It does not matter if it is 50, 100 or 1,000 people. They are people with disabilities who would have had an entitlement. They accepted that they did not qualify under the scheme, as advised by the HSE and the Department at the time, and yet we know that 512 people did once they appealed it. The Department needs to find out who they are, do the trawl, seek them out and make sure they get what they should have got back in the day.

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