Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Question 241: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children, further to Question No. 89 of 9 February 2006, if she will reply in detail to the question raised with particular reference to the individual circumstances; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [6587/06]

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 have 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.

Draft heads of a Bill for a repayment scheme were submitted to the Government in December and were approved. The draft heads have been submitted to the Office of 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.

As the Health Service Executive has responsibility for administering the national repayment scheme, inquiries relating to individual cases are referred to the parliamentary affairs division of the executive. My Department has asked the HSE to arrange to have this matter investigated and to have a reply issued directly to the Deputy.