Around 20,000 older people with medical cards who had their pensions illegally deducted to pay for their care in long-stay public nursing homes have begun to receive "goodwill" payments of €2,000 from health authorities.
The Health Services Executive (HSE) said yesterday the process of sending letters to eligible patients had commenced. The first patients have had payments credited to their patient property accounts.
Charges for medical card holders in nursing homes and other long-stay institutions have ceased since the Minister ordered health authorities to cease making these charges on December 9th, the HSE said.
In many cases nursing homes or health authorities seized the pension books of patients and deducted money in order to pay for nursing home care.
A further letter will be issued by the HSE in the coming days offering patients choices with regard to the use of their pension book. Arrangements will be made to return the patient's pension book to them if that is their choice, the HSE said in a statement.
Age Action Ireland, a support group for older people, said it welcomed the €2,000 payments, but said it did not take away from the wider issue of older people who paid more than €2,000 in illegal charges. "We think the limit of €2,000 is unjustified. If people are owed money, they should be paid it, " said Mr Paul Murray of Age Action Ireland.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling on the constitutionality of legislation giving the Government retrospective power to make the charges.
The referral of the legislation to the Supreme Court by the President, Mrs McAleese, in December means the Government cannot claim the €2.5 million a week in charges which would have been levied from residents if the Bill had been signed into law.
The Government rushed legislation through the Dáil and Seanad two months ago after the Attorney General said the practice of charging elderly nursing home residents for their care by making deductions from their pensions was legally unsound. A ruling against the Government could expose the State to a bill of hundreds of millions of euro in retrospective payments.
