Deputy Mary Lou McDonald- speech from 31 Jan 2023

For more than 30 years, the state and successive governments have ripped off hundreds and thousands of elderly citizens and their families by unlawfully charging them for nursing home care. Despite consistent, repeated legal advice that these charges were illegal, government continued to force vulnerable people to pay up. This created real financial hardship, pushed many into poverty as they struggled to afford the charges. At the weekend, we discovered in the Mail on Sunday that successive governments to this very day operate a secret, calculated legal strategy to stop those who are illegally charged from getting their money back. This was last night confirmed by a government spokesperson. So, instead of the state and government owning up to this horrendous treatment of elderly citizens, successive governments have pursued a heartless, legal and political strategy. A strategy designed by governments to draw out cases that they knew they could not win, to exhaust the ability of people to fund their legal challenges and then to settle for significantly reduced awards, all the while keeping things hush, hush. Governments did this knowing it would hit the least well off families the hardest. We are talking about people forced to work beyond retirement to pay for their parents' nursing home fees. We are talking about pensioners left on a weekly pittance to live after paying the charges for loved ones' care. We are talking about families fearing they would go without food, without clothes, without the basic necessities after forking out these fees. Life savings and pensions wiped out, homes sold, elderly people pushed to the breadline, all in a desperate scramble to pay charges that were illegal, charges that the government knew to be illegal. And then the biggest scandal of all, a carefully designed, reviewed plan to prevent these people from getting their money back, their money, Taoiseach. That is the reality of this scandal. And yet government after government persisted. You have claimed that this is complex, Taoiseach. But there is nothing complex about government ripping off elderly people. There is nothing complex about devising a legal and political strategy to cover your tracks. The truth is that this heartless strategy was agreed and renewed by every government and every health minister, including yourself, up to the present day. Yesterday you went on the radio. You claimed that you were never party to devising or agreeing this legal strategy. You tried to distance yourself. But that is not true. A memo from 5 May 2016, also published, states clearly that the strategy was agreed by the minister, overseen by the minister, which was you. Is that not the case? Not alone did you know about it. Your colleague Simon Harris knew about it. Your colleague Helen McEntee knew about it. Your colleague Micheál Martin knew about it. So let's not play games. Where is my question, Taoiseach. Do you still claim that you knew nothing of this strategy? colleagues in government knew nothing of this. It is clear to me that all documentation and correspondence relating to this secret legal strategy must now be published. Will you commit to that? First of all, this is a historic issue that dates back to the 1970s. I do not know the full facts of it, and I doubt that anyone else does. The Minister for Health has sought advice from the Attorney-General and a detailed written briefing from his officials. The Attorney-General is also preparing a report for Cabinet for next Tuesday, which we will publish thereafter. Until such a time as we receive those detailed written briefings, there is a limited amount that we can say on the matter because we do need to establish the facts, although you seem to know them all already, Deputy. Once the facts have been established, this will be subject to statements here in the House, and I think it would also be appropriate for Department of Health officials to make a presentation to the Joint Directorate Committee on Health. It has been confirmed that the policy and legal approach predated July 2011 and has been followed since then. Successive Attorney-General, Ministers in multiple governments and senior officials in the Department of Health would have considered the matter and would appear advised in a consistent manner on the issue. Deputy, I believe this matter has been grossly misrepresented, including by you just now, in a very irresponsible way. Your claim that people in private nursing homes were illegally charged is not correct, and your claim that that was confirmed by a Government spokesperson last night was just made up. The strategy was to defend the cases relating to private nursing homes on several grounds, in particular that medical cardholders did not have an entitlement to free private nursing home care. It was never the policy of the Government, nor the intention of the Oireachtas, to create such an entitlement. Even today, Deputy, people with medical cards, for one reason or another, either choose or are forced to avail of private health care and social care. They do not get a refund, not even now. A limited number of individual cases were settled over the course of ten years, where there were complicating factors. No case ever proceeded to a hearing, and if it had, the State would have defended its position and had bona fide defences prepared. In the case of public nursing home charges, a scheme was put in place, widely publicised, and £485 million was paid to former residents and their families. This sum was considerably less than the estimate of £5 billion put on the potential liability in 2011 by the Department of Health. It was made very clear at the time that this would not extend to people who were in private nursing homes. I want to reassure the House that this is not a current issue that impacts any current nursing home residents, nor any residents in recent years. Since 2009, the nursing home support scheme, the Fair Deal, has provided a legal basis for individuals to make contributions towards their public or private nursing home costs. In relation to my own role, Deputy, in 2011 I was Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport. I was Minister for Health from the summer of 2014 to the summer of 2016, that was six to eight years ago. I must have been briefed on it. The ministers that went before me and after me were briefed on it, so I must have been as well. But I cannot tell you when, I cannot tell you by whom, I cannot tell you in what depth, in what detail, or whether it was written or verbal. Until I have access to documents from that period, I cannot answer that question definitively, and I do not have any access to documents from that period, but I have sought them. What I can say is that the policy and strategy was devised and agreed prior to me becoming Minister for Health. I do not specifically know if I was asked to sign off on it being continued, but if I had been asked, Deputy, I would have. This was a sound policy approach and a legitimate legal strategy by the government at the time and previous governments and governments since. All ministers from 2005 onwards at all times acted in good faith, in the public interest, in accordance with official advice and in accordance with legal advice from the Attorney-General. That is exactly how they should act. Deputy McDonnell. In fact, you acted in bad faith, as did your colleagues, as did your predecessors, and it seems your successors. You have confirmed now to the House that you were in fact yesterday wrong. You did know about this strategy and that you had in fact been briefed. Can you confirm for us that, likewise, Simon Harris, Helen McEntee and other members of government, indeed Michal Martin, can you confirm that they similarly were aware of this strategy and were briefed? Can you also, Taoiseach, respond to my other question, which is around the publication of all of the documentation surrounding these issues? These need to be published, I believe, as a matter of urgency. They need to be publicly scrutinised. On the issue of who was briefed, Simon Harris, Helen McEntee, Michal Martin, anybody else? Who did the 2011 initial memo go to? You said yesterday that you believed it was to four people. Can you identify who they were and can you confirm that all documentation will in fact be published? Taoiseach? Thanks, Deputy. I can't confirm who or who was not briefed over that period of time, but I am sure individuals will do that as they can, based on their recollections. In relation to documents, we are assembling those documents now in the Attorney General's office in the Department of Health. I haven't seen them. I have seen one or two, but certainly not all of them. When we have assembled them all, we will put any ones that we can into the public domain, and that will be the right thing to do. What we are not going to do is in a drip-by-drip fashion, and that is what is happening in the papers at the moment, and that is creating a false impression, in my view. Deputy, the allegation here is very clear. The allegation here is that four or five governments, four or five attorneys general, any number of ministers, former ministers, some in the government, some in the opposition now, and dozens of officials, all conspired to deny people refunds they were entitled to. That is as far-fetched as it sounds. That is not what happened, Deputy.