Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Last week, I raised the issue of RTÉ's continuing bias on a range of social issues, particularly abortion. RTÉ has failed to represent the views of the one third of voters who opposed the repeal of the eighth amendment, many of whom regard the consequences of repeal as having been catastrophic for human rights, unborn babies and, indeed, good quality healthcare in this country. Last Sunday, RTÉ was at it again with a guttingly one-sided celebration of the matter on the "Sunday with Miriam" show, with no attention paid to the voices of those who believe that human lives are tragically and unjustly being lost here. I listened to a webinar a couple of weeks ago when I heard the voices of women who regret having abortions and who report systemic denialism whereby, at best, they are ignored by the media and, at worst, they experience hostility. I raise this matter on behalf of people who feel indignant about all of this from the public service broadcaster. Those who are going to refuse to pay the television licence fee in the future really cannot be blamed as long as this goes on. We are going to have to keep talking about this until somebody addresses the problem.

I want to raise the issue of what are called patient private property, PPP, accounts. Essentially, these are accounts that are administered by the HSE on behalf of vulnerable people who are in long-term residential care facilities run by or on behalf of the HSE. The people in question are older individuals, those with mental health issues or intellectual disabilities and wards of court. Property is held by these PPP accounts and can be administered and used by representatives of the HSE directly or through a third party or agent for the benefit and care of the person involved. The HSE operates more than 15,000 of these accounts at present. Guidelines are in place to ensure that the accounts are operated ethically and in a transparent fashion, and always in the best interests of the vulnerable.

This system is administered under section 2 of Health (Repayment Scheme) Act 2006. There is a problem with how these accounts operate or, more to the point, with the fact that they only apply to people who are being cared for within the public system. Section 2 refers to "a person ... being cared for by, or on behalf of, the Executive". People who are being cared for in private nursing homes, no matter how vulnerable they are, do not get the benefit or protection of the scheme. I have received representations on this matter from those who are familiar with the sector and who work in the area of the rights of elderly and vulnerable people. They inform me that they believe that what is being done here puts patients in private homes at a disadvantage. They feel that the accounts and property of those persons should also be capable of being administered and used on their behalf, for their welfare and with appropriate safeguards. This problem could be remedied by a couple of very small changes to the 2006 Act to make it that people in private care could also have their property administered in this way and that there would be safeguards in place to make sure that everything operates ethically.

I ask for a debate on this issue. Perhaps that could take place in the context of a more general debate on nursing homes in the wake of the Covid pandemic. I am very interested to know whether the Government has considered this matter and whether it plans to address the lacuna that exists in law and our policy relating to the protection of persons in nursing home care.