Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)
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Question 293: To ask the Minister for Health and Children if she will report on the operation of the repayment of nursing home fees; the reason no timeframe was established with a company (details supplied) to keep all recipients informed as to when they could expect payment; if she has instigated a review of the operation of the scheme; if she has received many complaints from recipients regarding late payment; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [3469/07]

Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)
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The Health (Repayment Scheme) Act 2006 provides a clear legal framework to repay recoverable health charges for publicly funded long term residential care. All those fully eligible persons who were wrongly charged and are alive will have their charges repaid in full. The estates of all those fully eligible persons who were wrongly charged for publicly funded long term residential care and died since 9 December 1998 will have the charges repaid in full. The scheme does not allow for repayments to the estates of those who died prior to that date.

Recoverable health charges are charges which were imposed on persons with full eligibility under the Health (Charges for In-patient Services) Regulations 1976 as amended in 1987 or charges for in-patient services only, raised under the Institutional Assistance Regulations 1954 as amended in 1965.

The repayment scheme was launched publicly by the Health Service Executive (HSE) and the Scheme Administrator KPMG/McCann Fitzgerald in August 2006. The Scheme Administrator has commenced scanning the records of long stay facilities around the country and to date 167 locations have been visited for this purpose.

In relation to dates of repayments to applicants, the HSE has informed the Department that over 24,000 forms have been submitted to the Scheme Administrator applying for repayments and these applications are being processed at present. The timeframe for repayment is predicated primarily on whether the applicant is alive or whether the application is being made by the estate of a deceased person. Living people who were wrongly charged will be prioritised to receive repayments. It is estimated that there are now in the region of 14,000 people within this category. Queries in relation to individual applications, including details on the timeframe for a repayment, should be referred to the Scheme Administrator. Complainants are also requested to contact the Scheme Administrator for details concerning the anticipated date of repayment.

In addition, the HSE has put arrangements in place whereby it can make applications on behalf of living persons in long stay institutions where there is no other connected person to make an application and where the applicants are unable to apply themselves due to ill health, or mental or physical disability.

The HSE has advised that offers of repayment commenced in November 2006 and that the first payments have already issued with further payments continuing on an ongoing basis. The HSE has indicated that over €17 million has been repaid to date and that the average repayment is approximately €21,000. It is expected that the bulk of payments to estates will commence in the Spring. Provision has been made for applications to be received up to 1 January 2008. It is anticipated that final repayments will be made by mid 2008.

No deadline has been established for when claims received will be repaid due to the fact that some applications will take longer to process depending on the complexity of the application and the accuracy and detail of records which are available. However, a dedicated website (www.repay.ie), an information phone line (1890 886 886) and an e-mail facility (queries@repay.ie) have been established by the Scheme Administrator to assist the public in accessing claim forms and general information on the scheme. The information line operates between the hours of 8.00 am and 9.00 p.m. from Monday to Saturday.

A national oversight committee was appointed in August 2005 to provide an independent input into the design of the scheme and continues to monitor the operation of the scheme in order to ensure that it is being implemented quickly and in the most equitable and effective way possible. The committee is representative of service users, including Age Action Ireland and the Irish Senior Citizens Parliament. The committee is fully briefed on all aspects of the scheme and has provided valuable input into the process to date. Officials from my Department liaise with the HSE on an ongoing basis to monitor the implementation of the Health (Repayment Scheme) Act, 2006.