The Southern Health Board returned £163,831.85 to the Office of the Chief State Solicitor in respect of 341 long-stay patients in its care who died intestate and without anyone claiming kinship with them.
The board has confirmed that it paid £118,319.64 in 1999 to the Chief State Solicitor and that this related to 233 patients who had died before April 1992. Last year, a subsequent payment of £45,512.21 was made, relating to a further 108 patients who had died between 1992 and 1998.
A sum of £18,606.90 remains unclaimed in respect of another 84 patients who have died and whose relatives cannot be traced. The Southern Health Board has had to arrange over 400 funerals for people who died while in long-stay facilities and who had no relatives present.
In a statement yesterday, the board said its policy was to search extensively for patients' next-of-kin when they died.
If the board was unsuccessful in locating the next-of-kin, the funds were forwarded to the State Solicitor, who is deemed the inheritor of last resort. The Southern Health Board arranged for the funeral and burial of these patients.
Huge sums of money could be involved if the experience of the Southern Board was replicated throughout the health board system, claimed Mr Batt O'Keeffe TD, chairman of the Southern Health Board.
He said it was normal in the case of long-stay patients that part of their pensions or other earnings were made payable to the board, while the remainder of the money, sometimes as little as 30 per cent, was placed in an account in their name.
"With elderly, long-stay patients, you can imagine that their needs are very small, and very often they wouldn't even use the money in those accounts, which can build up over the years.
"But what seems astonishing is that the health board has been unable to contact any next-of-kin in so many cases," said Mr O'Keeffe.
The latest records from the board show that in psychiatric hospitals throughout the Southern Health Board region, £7,604.90 involving 31 deceased patients remains unclaimed, while in geriatric hospitals some 53 patients left £11,002 in dormant accounts.
