The infringement of human rights revealed by the Ombudsman's report on nursing home grants amounted to a scandal, the Alzheimer's Society of Ireland said yesterday.
The report, Nursing Home Subventions, contains an unprecedented level of criticism of the Department of Health. It accuses the Department of knowingly insisting on a harsher means test than was legally allowable, of offering incorrect advice to health boards for a sustained period and of lengthy delays in dealing with the Ombudsman's office on the issue.
The effect of the Department's actions was to deprive nursing home residents in many parts of the State of pocket money and to impose charges on relatives which they should not have had to meet.
About £6 million is now to be paid back to those who lost out, the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, has confirmed.
The problems originated in the introduction in 1993 of a scheme of subsidies of the cost of nursing-home care.
The Department insisted that in working out the amount of the grant which a person could get, the income of their children should be taken into account.
The report reveals, however, that legal advice given to the Department and to the health boards over the years was that there was no legal basis for taking children's income into account. Secondly, nursing-home residents in most health board areas were wrongly deprived of pocket money to which they were entitled.
It is in his general criticisms of the actions and attitudes of the Department that the Ombudsman, Mr Kevin Murphy, is at his most scathing.
Maladministration occurred on a significant scale, he writes. The actions of the Department and of health boards were "taken without proper authority", were "improperly discriminatory" and were generally "contrary to fair or sound administration".
The Department took short cuts, disregarded legal advice, assumed powers which technically it did not have and resisted the growing weight of evidence and complaints that its subvention scheme was seriously flawed, he says.
The Department's actions "can only undermine public confidence in government and in our democratic institutions and call into question whether the present arrangements facilitate efficient, open and accountable government".
In particular, he points out, regulations can be introduced by ministers with little or no scrutiny by the Oireachtas.
He suggests that a system, such as an Oireachtas committee, should scrutinise regulations which ministers propose to make.
Mr Martin said the report would be considered fully by his Department.
The Alzheimer Society of Ireland said through its chief executive, Mr Maurice O Connell: "This controversy highlights just some of the very real difficulties facing spouses and families of people with dementia when attempting to organise quality and appropriate care for their loved one.
"People with Alzheimer's and their carers are a very vulnerable group and are particularly so at the difficult time when faced with placing their loved one into full-time care. They are very easily exploited."