Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I support the Minister of State in what he is saying. While this is no criticism of the Minister of State or the Department, we need to do more long-term planning on hospital charges and elderly care. The history of this involves the 1970 legislation followed by the Supreme Court decision in 1976 which found that nursing home care came under the definition of medical care and therefore came under the jurisdiction of the medical card. We then had the Ombudsman's report in 2001 and the subsequent challenge to charges in public nursing homes and in contracted beds in private nursing homes in 2004. The fair deal system was then established in 2009. It is a very long dragged-out process of developing a structure for nursing home care.

While this legislation deals with the here and now, perhaps it is time for us to establish a 20-year plan to cover the problems that may exist in 15 or 20 years. Rather than introducing legislation when the problem arises, we should ensure we have the legislation in place before the problem arises. I am not sure we are doing that. I believe the Department should consider doing so at this stage. I envisage us revisiting the whole area of charges for nursing home care within the next five years. We need to sit down and look at it at this stage.