Seanad report:The proposal to allow the State collect part of the value of older people's homes to offset the cost of their nursing home care should be put to the people in a referendum, Terry Leyden (FF) said.
The proposal might be unconstitutional under Article 43 (2) of the Constitution whereby the State guaranteed to pass no law attempting to abolish the right of private ownership or the general right to transfer, bequeath and inherit property.
"I would recommend that the Government would have a referendum on the same day as the children's rights referendum if there is all-party agreement."
If it was proposed to bring in this particular provision it should be put to the people to enable them to decide whether it was appropriate to take a percentage of a person's property to pay for their time in a retirement home.
It was the view of the Minister for Health that the regulatory framework for private health insurance, including provision for risk equalisation, was appropriate, and that it would have been possible for Bupa to remain in the market and make reasonable profits going forward, said Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Conor Lenihan.
He was responding, on behalf of the Minister, Mary Harney, to Paul Bradford (FG), who appealed to the Minister to seek urgent talks with Bupa, which, he said, was a non-profit organisation. It was important to see if there could be a reversal of the disastrous decision of the health insurer to withdraw from the Irish market.
Mr Bradford wondered what sort of signals were we sending out in terms of the promotion of competition in State services when, on the other hand, in terms of health services we were putting in place a policy which would inevitably cause the death of competition as it now stood.