Frances Fitzgerald (Fine Gael)

I move amendment No. 4:

In page 12, between lines 12 and 13, to insert the following subsection:

"(6) The Minister shall provide a report to the Houses of the Oireachtas on the funds made available for the Nursing Home State Support Scheme.".

This issue of how the elderly will get support if they need residential care is one of the critical issues we in society must face at present. As the House will be aware, it is very inequitable, it is arbitrary and the criteria are far from clear. This legislation is an attempt to move in a direction that provides some clarity and a mechanism to bring fairness into the equation.

The critical question is: what resources will be made available to allow this to happen and what resource capping will there be as we move towards implementing this important legislation? I am concerned that we would arrive at a situation where, for example, there would be a care assessment, it would be agreed by everybody that it was necessary that a residential placement should be provided but, because of resource shortages, it would not be available.

This is the position at present. If one takes the number of people who are in hospital beds whose care has effectively been assessed as in need of residential care and who are high dependency, there are large numbers of individuals living in hospitals around the country who should be in residential care.

The question of what resources will be made available to implement this legislation is critical and it is not an easy one. Obviously, we are in an extremely difficult financial situation. It is not an easy question for the Minister to respond to or to give guarantees on, but the point of this legislation is to make places available to those who need them and to provide a funding mechanism for families, who are unclear on the matter and who are finding it very difficult to manage. Many people are paying a great deal of money. Some of them are getting subvention while some are not and it is not clear why that is the case. It is a major concern for families and individuals.

My simple amendment states that the Minister shall on an ongoing basis - I expect on a yearly basis - provide a report to the Seanad and the Dáil on the funds made available for the nursing home State support scheme.

Section 5 of the Bill stipulates that the fair deal scheme is resource capped. Obviously, that will lead to waiting lists for support under the scheme and it is possible that family members will be called upon to fund the difference. At the same time in recent budgets the tax relief on nursing home care has been reduced to the standard rate.

This amendment brings some accountability to the Houses of the Oireachtas for the funds being made available to the scheme. It is an opportunity to look at how adequate is the provision being made by Government at any particular time for funding for the scheme. There are questions. If the scheme is to be resource capped, which I understand, there will inevitably be waiting lists, but how will the waiting lists be dealt with? Will family members continue to be expected to pay up while we wait for some funds to be freed up by places becoming available, perhaps through death?

Under the existing system, people received some contribution to the cost of their care, even if it had to be supplemented by the person's family. Under the new scheme, is it possible that an older person could be left with nothing and no certainty about how funding might become available? We are in a situation where the need for high dependency beds is great. Many high dependency people are in unsuitable placements in hospitals, which is creating major problems within hospitals and for individuals and their families. I look forward to hearing what the Minister for State has to say about the resource issue because it is critical.

I do not know how much she can say on the matter today, given the financial situation, but at the least this amendment would ensure there is some ongoing monitoring of how the scheme is evolving and developing, what funds are being made available, what priority it is getting from Government, how many places are being made available on an ongoing basis, how many are being funded, what the waiting lists are and what the need is. It would bring some useful democratic accountability into the process. I ask the Minister of State to accept the amendment.