Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for affording me the opportunity to raise this important issue on the Adjournment. Many people await a response in respect of the health repayment scheme. The issue I raise concerns a lady in my constituency, God rest her, who died on 5 January 2002. Numerous representations and requests have been made by her family and a second application form was submitted under the repayment scheme when the first form went missing.

Since the establishment of a process to make repayments, parliamentary questions submitted in 2006, 2007 and 2008 have been met with the same extraordinary response, one which I specifically reject as inconsistent and incompatible with the rules applying to the Houses of the Oireachtas. As parliamentary questions pertaining to this matter are forwarded to the Health Service Executive, Deputies do not receive a reply in the House. Instead we receive letters thanking us for our recent correspondence seeking information regarding an application and stating that data protection rules governing the repayment process are particularly strict and primarily aimed at protecting privacy. This is a load of rubbish and the suggestion that the Data Protection Act precludes the HSE from providing an answer is nothing more than an attempt to cover up inadequacies and inefficiencies.

The Data Protection Act does not apply to Members of the House as we are registered under the Act. I reject any attempt by external bodies, agencies or individuals to withhold information from the Parliament on the basis that they are prevented from supplying such information under the terms of the Data Protection Act. No such rule or regulation applies to Parliament and any attempt to subvert the activity of the Oireachtas by making a suggestion of this nature is illegal and unconstitutional.

I am sure many other people find themselves in the same position as the family of the woman in question who has made regular inquiries. An agency received a substantial amount of money to operate the repayment scheme. While I do not propose to provide a figure because it does not improve with repetition, it irritates me to receive letters suggesting I cannot be given information because the HSE is precluded from imparting such information under the Data Protection Act. This is not the case.

I ask the Minister of State to get hold of the relevant person by the scruff of the neck, give him or her a good shake and inform him or her that Deputies have had enough of this nonsense. Let us deal with the issue and pay the bills. Failing that, we should walk off the pitch.

Mary Wallace (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

I thank Deputy Durkan for raising this matter. I am pleased to have the opportunity to set out the position regarding the health repayment scheme.

Following consideration of the implications of the Supreme Court judgment of 16 February 2005, the Government approved a statutory based repayment scheme. The Health (Repayment Scheme) Act 2006 provides a clear legal framework to repay recoverable health charges for publicly funded long-term residential care, including contracted beds in private institutions. All those fully eligible persons who were wrongly charged for publicly funded long-term residential care and are alive will have their charges repaid in full. The estates of all those fully eligible persons who were wrongly charged for publicly funded long-term residential care and died since 9 December 1998 will have the charges repaid in full.

Recoverable health charges are charges that were imposed on persons with full eligibility under the Health (Charges for In-patient Services) Regulations 1976, as amended in 1987, or charges for inpatient services only raised under the Institutional Assistance Regulations 1954, as amended in 1965. It is only these charges which are repayable under the scheme.

The health repayment scheme was launched in August 2006 and is administered by the Health Service Executive in conjunction with the appointed scheme administrator, KPMG-McCann Fitzgerald. The scheme is progressing as speedily as possible and every effort is being made to settle claims as quickly as possible. The HSE has advised that the vast majority of offers under the scheme will have been issued by November of this year. It has also indicated that as of 10 October 2008, more than 34,500 claim forms have been received, 13,843 payments totalling more than €288 million have been processed and 18,365 offers totalling more than €344 million have been made.

The time taken to process an application under the scheme is dependent on the complexity of the application, namely, the number of institutions in which the patient resided and the availability of accurate information on the amount of repayment due. In this regard, all relevant HSE facilities, more than 350 in total, have been visited by the scheme administrator to retrieve records of payment. In addition, the HSE has been working closely with the scheme administrator to put in place the necessary protocols to facilitate the processing of any claims where there are incomplete records available on a patient's period of long-stay care or on payments made. These protocols have been developed in accordance with section 6 of the Act.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

The Minister of State should not insult my intelligence by reading the rest of the reply.

Mary Wallace (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

I will not upset the Deputy by referring to the Data Protection Act. In regard to the specific claim raised, where the mother of the applicant was a resident in an institution who died in 2002, an application form was received by the scheme administrator in August last year and the repayment is being processed.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

That was the second application.

Mary Wallace (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

It is expected that the claimant will receive the scheme administrator's decision in regard to the application in the coming weeks.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

I ask the Minister of State to call the HSE and ask that it put an end to this nonsense.