Written answers
Wednesday, 25 January 2006
Department of Health and Children
Legislative Programme
8:00 pm
Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)
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Question 373: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children when legislation will be brought before the Houses of the Oireachtas to provide a clear legal framework for a repayments scheme in relation to over-charging for publicly funded, long-term residential care. [1422/06]
Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)
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The Government has agreed the key elements of a scheme for the repayment of long-stay charges for publicly funded residential care. All those fully eligible persons who were wrongly charged and are alive and the estates of all those who were wrongly charged and are dead since 9 December 1998 will have the charges repaid in full. The scheme will not allow for repayments to the estates of those who died prior to the aforementioned date. The repayments will include both the actual charge paid and an amount to take account of inflation, using the consumer price index, since the time the person involved was charged.
Draft heads of a Bill for a repayment scheme were submitted to Government in December and were approved. The draft heads have been submitted to the Parliamentary Counsel for drafting and it is my intention to have the Bill published in the current parliamentary session and to have repayments commencing shortly after the Bill is approved and signed into law.
The scheme will be designed and managed with the aim of ensuring that those who are eligible for repayments receive them as soon as possible and with the minimum possible imposition in terms of bureaucracy. Priority will be given to those who are still alive. Many of those eligible for repayments have already been identified as a result of initial payments made following my announcement in December 2004. The scheme will include a transparent and thorough appeals process.
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