LAST UPDATE | 1 Feb 2023
THE CHAIRMAN OF the Public Accounts Accounts committee has the Dáil group will investigate whether the HSE and the Department of Health hid settlement figures from cases arising from its nursing homes charges strategy.
It comes after it emerged that the Government had used the strategy to limit payouts to nursing home residents for controversial charges and that the plan was “pursued by successive governments”.
Sinn Féin TD Brian Stanley said this morning that the strategy has turned into a “complete mess” with the State potentially “facing a large liability” for how it sought to block refunds for patients in some nursing homes.
The oversight committee is meeting this afternoon in a private session to discuss the strategy and how it might be investigated.
“One of the big questions here is that the annual accounts for the HSE and indeed for the Department of Health is that these figures, in relation to the nursing home liability, the charges for them, and the liability in terms of money that may be owed back to people, was not showing up in in the accounts of the HSE,” he told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland.
“That’s obviously a huge question because proper accountancy would demand that figures that run into hundreds of millions would show in those accounts, and apparently it didn’t. That’s a matter that we need, I believe to investigate.”
The State defended these cases by residents and their families based “on several grounds, in particular that medical card holders did not have an unqualified entitlement to free private nursing home care”.
The Laois-Offaly TD said that the committee wants to know the “costs and scale” of the strategy, including the total liability from all cases.
It also wants to examine how much has been paid out and if the State still faces potential liability.
“We need to also know the legal position, and one of the areas we need to go over is how it was developed and who was involved. There’s really a question around that because what’s been implied is that successive governments have been aware of this and have have given it a nod.”
He added that as “all cases were settled out of court”, a figure would have existed for these settlements and they should have shown up in the accounts provided to the PAC.
“What it appears happened, is that that did not happen and that would be completely against the rules of accountancy and it would be completely against the rules of public accounts, and as the chairperson Public Accounts Committee, I would expect to be able to see those figures.
“And if they’re not there, we want to know why, back over successive years.”
When asked if he accepted that the government has an obligation to limit the liability facing taxpayers, Stanley agreed but added that it’s a matter of ”justice” as some of the people affected were on “very low incomes” and may also have been medical card holders.
“If you’re charged wrongly, you’re charged wrongly. It’s a the case of right and wrong here,” he said.
“That’s what it comes down to at the end of the day: who should have been charged and who shouldn’t have been charged.
“And if people were wrongly charged, and from the documents released to date, it would appear that the state accepted that and conceded that they’re facing a big liability.”
Meanwhile, older people’s charity Age Action has said the controversy shows the need for a Commissioner for Ageing and Older persons to “bring an appropriate level of insight, representation and transparency” to policy decisions.
Celine Clarke, the group’s head of advocacy and public affairs, said it would “help prevent scandals such as the recent revelation of a secret state policy to deter older persons from taking cases to challenge being charged for nursing home care”.
She said: “A single, independent office is needed to safeguard and promote the interests of older people now and in the future. Currently, nobody is tasked monitoring and seeking remedies for gaps in policy or inaction that disproportionately impacts older people.
“There are over one million people over the age of 60 in Ireland today, most of whom do not have access to representative bodies or state resolution mechanisms that are available to employees or business owners.
“A Commissioner would address this gap by bringing representation and transparency to issues relevant to older people.”
Clarke called for “full disclosure from Government and the Department of Health” to ensure that people who need care receive it “regardless of their means” and that they have access to all the information they need to make decisions about their care.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has argued that coverage of the strategy has been misrepresented and related to residents in private nursing homes rather all public residents.
Speaking in the Dáil today, Varadkar said that he had not been the Health Minister involved in agreeing the legal strategy and that it had been previously agreed in 2014.
It comes after a Government spokesperson yesterday said that Varadkar had not renewed the agreement, following correspondence between the Department of Health and the Department of an Taoiseach.
“It is the clear understanding of the Unit that this does not refer to Minister Varadkar, as was, but refers to a previous Minister, as this decision in relation to the range of settlements was apparently made well before his time,” the spokesperson said.
Varadkar said yesterday that he was unaware if he had been asked to sign off on a continuation of the policy while he was Health Minister, but said that he would have.
“I don’t specifically know if I was asked to sign off on it being continued but if I had been asked deputy, I would have,” Varadkar said, in response to Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald.
“This was a sound policy approach and a legitimate legal strategy by the government at the time.
“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 and that’s exactly how they should act.”
Varadkar said that Health Minister Stephen Donnelly had sought advice from the Attorney General as well as a briefing from Department officials.
He added that the Attorney General would be providing a report for Cabinet next week on the legal strategy, which would be published afterwards.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say