Madam, - The Minister for Finance missed a good opportunity to tackle a major problem in our public hospitals when he decided not to give tax relief on rental income to home-owners occupying long-stay beds, if they opt for private nursing home care.
This imaginative proposal from the Technical Engineering and Electrical Union would have helped release over 200 acute hospital beds in the Dublin acute hospitals alone.
Lack of hospital beds is one of the main obstacles to reducing waiting lists, not to mention the ordeal it inflicts on A&E patients sleeping on trolleys.
At present many patients occupying long-term public hospital beds could only afford private nursing home care by selling the family home. Granting them tax relief on rental income that was used for private nursing home care would spare them from making such a traumatic decision as well as freeing badly needed public hospital beds.
Such a scheme would be cost neutral for the Exchequer as private rental income would pay for private health care. And it would increase the supply of rental accommodation in Dublin and other urban centres with large hospitals, where the present high cost of accommodation discourages badly needed foreign health professionals, such as nurses, from working in this country.
If the Government wanted to be really imaginative it could even facilitate a public or private letting agency to manage the scheme and maximise the benefits for the health service. Needless to say, any rental income generated over and above health care costs could be taxed in the normal way. - Yours, etc.,
EAMON DEVOY,
Assistant General Secretary,
TEEU,
Cavendish Row,
Dublin 5.