Harney backs limit on nursing home claims

Minister for Health Mary Harney said she favoured using the statute of limitations to curb the cost to the State of compensation claims arising from the illegal nursing home charges.

Ms Harney said she would abide by and respect the Supreme Court's decision on the manner in which the State would set about making repayments.

"However, I must be honest and admit that I am keen to use the statute of limitations if we can because this is an enormous bill," she added.

"As the Travers report made clear, there was broad support for the concept of charging for shelter and maintenance going back to 1947 and no government in office since then saw fit to remove the capacity to charge for shelter and maintenance.

"The tragedy is that this was not legislated for."

She said the Government would seek to make it as easy as possible for people to go through the scheme it would establish rather than pursue the legal route.

"I want the taxpayers' money that we are going to pay to go to the elderly and their needs and not to the interests of the legal profession, all due respect to that profession," she added.

Ms Harney said that before the Supreme Court decision, the department estimated that it had raised €1.15 billion since 1976. However, when it came to repayment, the issue of interest also arose.

"That is why some of the figures we are now discussing are somewhat higher than the figure of €1.15 billion," said Ms Harney.

"One has to consider interest and what someone could have earned if he or she had put the money in the Post Office or somewhere else." She said that the statute of limitations covered a period of six years.

While she had not received definitive legal advice from the Attorney General, her department was still in the process of drawing up a memorandum to be presented to the Cabinet on April 6th.

"Trying to assemble all the information and thereby get a definitive opinion from the Attorney General has been a mammoth task," said Ms Harney.

"However, I have already put on the record the preliminary advice from the Attorney General that we cannot use the statute of limitations against anyone of unsound mind.

"Furthermore, for anyone now alive to seek to prove that he or she was of unsound mind would be an impossible task, as the deputies can imagine, and a very unfair task to ask anyone to undertake."

Ms Harney said she had been told there were 22,000 people alive whose estates were affected, so most of those affected had died. For those still alive, the breakdown between people in mental health institutions and those in the category of the elderly seemed to be 50/50.

Fine Gael health spokesman Dr Liam Twomey accused Ms Harney of attempting to cover up legal advice submitted on the issue by the South Eastern Health Board.

Ms Harney said she had made many documents available which were not even in the Travers report. However, she could only supply legal documents if they did not prejudice any upcoming court cases. She had been advised by the Attorney General that she could jeopardise the proceedings of the State if she put the advice into the public domain.

Labour leader Pat Rabbitte and party health spokeswoman Liz McManus renewed their criticism of the role played by former minister for health Micheál Martin on the issue.

"No minister could stand over total ignorance when such information is available to him and when his advisers, civil servants and ministers of state were at the meeting [in December 2003]," Ms McManus said.