Seanad report: Mr Feargal Browne (FG) said he hoped civil servants would not be scapegoated over the handling by the Department of Health and Children of the issue of charges for long-stay nursing-home residents.
Speaking on the Health (Amendment) (No 2) Bill to legalise charges on such pensioners, Mr Browne said he welcomed the fact that Mr John Travers, the former chief executive officer of Forfás, would investigate the management of this issue by the Department.
"I hope civil servants are not scapegoated, as is usual in politics. The Minister should take responsibility, as happens in other jurisdictions," Mr Browne said.
The Minister of State, Mr Conor Lenihan, had acknowledged that the €2,000 ex gratia payment could be challenged in the courts. "The payment is fine, but all bets will be off if somebody is unhappy with it and makes the case in court that it is insufficient to compensate for the payments that he or she has made. Then, suddenly, we are in a very dangerous scenario," Mr Browne said.
Mr Derek McDowell (Lab) said the meeting of December 16th last year was important. The minister for health at the time, Mr Martin, had claimed that he had arrived late at it.
"While we can accept this, the minutes would have been provided to him later. The secretary general of the Department and the minister's officials must have been aware that the substantial body of legal advice should have been brought to his attention. It is remarkable no one took the trouble to sit down with the minister for five minutes to explain the existence of this long-standing problem and how it must be dealt with eventually."
If Mr Martin had not been available to deal with it, surely the minister of state with responsibility for services for older people should have been asked?
Mr McDowell said the Labour Party had obtained legal advice which raised serious concerns about the constitutional issues in the Bill.
Ms Joanna Tuffy (Lab) said the €35 a week that nursing home residents were to be allowed to retain as pocket money should be raised to a more realistic level to enable these elderly people to keep their independence to a reasonable degree.
Dr Maurice Hayes (Ind) said he wondered about the rather cursory attention that had been given to the findings of the Ombudsman. What the Ombudsman had been pointing to was systemic failure and almost class actions.
Mr Ulick Burke (FG) said pensioners were being penalised through this legislation. Demanding to know if the €2,000 payment would be just a first instalment, he said there remained an outstanding bill of €19,500 for each of the 20,000 people who had had illegal deductions taken from them.
Dr Mary Henry (Ind) said there had been example after example of the Department not knowing what the extension of various services would cost. She had been advocating for some time past that individuals should be given "identifier numbers" at birth, so that their involvement with the health services over their lifetime could provide a guide to the sort of planning that was necessary.
The Bill passed all stages.