James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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Question 153: To ask the Minister for Health and Children the status of the nursing home refund scheme for the repayment of illegal nursing home charges; the number of claims received and completed to date; the amount refunded to date; the number of applications that have been rejected; the reason they have been rejected; the cost of the scheme; the cost of administering the scheme; the average time for an application to be processed; when she expects the scheme to complete its work; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [25703/07]

Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)
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The Health Service Executive (HSE) has responsibility for administering the health repayment scheme in conjunction with the appointed scheme administrator KPMG/ McCann Fitzgerald.

The HSE has informed my Department that since the commencement of the scheme over 30,000 claims have been received and to date over 3,800 payments totalling over €77.3m have issued while 6,375 offers of repayment totalling over €119.8m have been made. The HSE have also informed my Department that over 3,183 applications have been rejected up to 12 Oct 2007. There are a variety of reasons for applications being rejected and these include instances where the relevant person died prior to 9 December 1998, where the relevant person resided in an institution not within the scope of the scheme and where duplicate applications were received on behalf of the relevant person.

Based on the projected level of repayments to be completed by the scheme administrator in 2007, an allocation of €150m will be provided for the scheme in the estimates for 2008. All eligible applications received prior to the closing date will be repaid in full and an appropriate provision will be made as necessary to meet any costs arising under the scheme. The HSE has estimated the administrative costs associated with the scheme to be approximately €23m.