Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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619. To ask the Minister for Health if a response will issue to queries raised by an organisation (details supplied) in respect of nursing home charges; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6667/23]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The Government is committed to supporting healthy and positive ageing as well as to ensuring that older persons can continue to live independently in their homes and communities for as long as possible.

Acknowledging the disproportionately negative impact of the pandemic on older persons, the Programme for Government: Our Shared Future (2020) commits to the establishment of a commission on care that will ‘assess how we care for older people and examine alternatives to meet the diverse needs of our older citizens’, learning the lessons from COVID 19.

In 2022 preliminary desk research was undertaken within my Department in preparation for the establishment of a commission on care. In 2023 the scoping and planning for the commission on care will be further advanced as a priority.

The correspondence from the organisation in question also refers to the State's legal strategy in relation to long stay litigation. Upon the raising of issues about how the State has approached legal challenges taken against it in relation to pre-2005 legacy nursing home charges, the Government moved quickly to establish the facts surrounding these issues, which go back many decades, by requesting the Attorney General to prepare a Report on the litigation management strategy. This comprehensive Report was produced within a week and was published on 7 February 2023.

There has been considerable discussion in the Oireachtas in recent weeks on these issues, including Dáil Statements and attendance by officials from the Department of Health at the Public Accounts Committee last week and officials from the Department will also appear before the Health Committee this week.

The Minister for Social Protection and I have undertaken to consider the Attorney General's Report in full and to revert to Government in three months on any further steps required.