Fair Deal nursing scheme to be reviewed in detail

THE FAIR Deal nursing home support scheme is to be reviewed, including the amount of funding taken from the family home after a persons’ death to pay for their care, Minister of State for Older People Kathleen Lynch has said.

The Minister yesterday questioned the logic behind some of the fundamentals of the scheme. She said the contribution of 15 per cent of the value of a home towards the cost of care six years ago was “an entirely different scenario” to 15 per cent of the value of a home today.

“Depending on the property market to ensure that any scheme is viable was always precarious to say the least,” the Minister said.

The Fair Deal, or Nursing Home Support Scheme, was established in October 2009 by then minister for health Mary Harney as a means of funding long-term care for the elderly.

Under it, older people must contribute 80 per cent of their disposable income towards the cost of care and 5 per cent of the value of their assets, including their family home, each year for three years. This portion can be deferred until after death.

Last year, the scheme ran out of money and additional funding had to be found to allow it continue.

Ms Lynch said she never considered it to be a good idea to introduce any scheme based on the property market.

“Once you do that then you are leaving yourself open to the winds that may blow and in this instance they’ve blown to our detriment. Any scheme introduced based on the property market is too volatile, way too volatile,” she said.

“There has to be something far more secure than that.”

She said everything within the scheme would have to be looked at as part of the review, including the accommodation contribution. She pointed out the scheme was rooted in primary legislation and if it were to be changed it would require an amendment or new legislation.

“I’m not certain that after three years you would be going down that route . . . I think there are other things that need to be done first,” she said.

These included looking at different types of accommodation for older people and at the mechanism used to determine whether or not an older person should be in a nursing home.

The Minister said running out of funding last year had focused minds and she was confident “the additional €50 million” added to the scheme this year would ensure the situation was not repeated.

“The last thing you want to do in terms of older people is leave them wondering whether or not the fund is going to run out of money,” she said. She also said far more care was now being taken with the €823 million budget. When the scheme was introduced, it was a matter of getting private nursing homes to take part. Now area managers were talking to the nursing homes “and getting the best possible value for the money that is available”.

Ms Lynch also said she had asked her colleague, Minister of State Jan O’Sullivan, who has responsibility for housing, to meet voluntary housing groups with a view to providing “sheltered, supported, and assisted” living accommodation as part of a housing strategy for older people.