Legislation will be introduced later this year to clarify the issue of whether a health board has a statutory duty to provide a place in a private nursing home if there is no room in its own facilities.
Dr Tom Moffatt TD, Minister of State for Health and Children with responsibility for older people, was speaking at a conference of the Irish Nursing Homes Organisation (INHO) entitled: "How will we care for the elderly in the future?" He said the Ombudsman's interpretation of the Health Act 1970 was that any person in need of nursing home care had a statutory entitlement to be provided with this service by a health board.
Dr Moffatt said he was aware, following recent reports, that INHO may have received similar legal advice.
The inference was that if a health board could not provide a place within its own facilities, it had a statutory duty to provide a place in a private nursing home.
"My Department's interpretation, based on legal advice it has received, is at variance with this. Nonetheless, it is accepted that the position relating to eligibility versus entitlement is, to say the least, ambiguous.
In order to clarify this issue, it is the intention to bring forward legislation later this year," he said.
Mr Michael McLoughlin, director of Amárach Consulting, said that in 30 years the population aged over 65 years would have doubled, particularly in the capital.
In the Dublin area, he said, the number of over-65s would grow from around 105,000 now to 250,000 in 2031.
Although not all of those people would need nursing home care, a significant proportion would need the facility.
They had to look now at where the nursing homes were going to be built and how they were going to be funded.
"The question we have to ask now is: where will the nursing homes be built, how will people be able to afford to build them and how will the elderly be able to afford to stay in them?" he said.
Mr Paul Costello, secretary-manager of the INHO, commented after the conference: "While the situation is difficult now in terms of finding a nursing home bed for the elderly and the cost of care, it will be in crisis in future unless the Government discusses the problems with us and finds a solution to the problems."