Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)
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Question 352: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children her plans regarding the compensation of patients who were forced to pay for private nursing home care due to a lack of public places and who now find themselves doubly disadvantaged by the offer of compensation to people who did secure a public bed and were subsequently illegally charged amounts substantially less that the cost of private care. [3287/06]

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 died 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 that 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.

Persons who were in publicly contracted beds in private nursing homes are covered by the terms of the Supreme Court judgment. The provisions of the judgment do not apply to individuals in private nursing homes who have entered these homes under the nursing home subvention scheme. The broad policy issues about State support for long-term care for older people, including residential care both publicly and privately provided, have been examined by an interdepartmental group. The report of that group is now being considered by the Government.