Patients illegally charged for nursing-home care will not receive refunds until at least next year and legislation promised on nursing-home standards is also delayed, it has emerged.
Minister for Health Mary Harney told the Dáil yesterday that legislation to allow for the refunds would not be published until 2006 because it was "mammoth legislation", but that 15,000 cases had already been assessed.
Pressed by the Opposition, she later clarified that the Bill would be published this year but was unlikely to be passed until next.
The refund scheme may cost up to €1 billion, following the controversy over long-stay care charges being deducted illegally from the pensions of public patients.
Fine Gael TD John Perry (Sligo-Leitrim) described the delay as "outrageous" and said it was now a year since the controversy was raised. Mr Perry, who first highlighted the problem of public patients being illegally charged for nursing-home care, said that "if money was owed to the State, there would be interest and penalties charged and this is the same issue".
Earlier, the Tánaiste also said that legislation on nursing-home standards had not yet been cleared by the Government. It was promised in the wake of the abuses at the Leas Cross nursing home in Co Dublin, highlighted in an RTÉ Prime Time documentary.
Fine Gael's finance spokesman, Richard Bruton, said the Dáil would "become irrelevant if it works itself up into a steam on the need to address an issue such as this, gets promises from the Taoiseach and Tánaiste that there would be legislation at the end of the summer" and then finds that it is not on the legislative programme.
Mr Bruton said not only had they made a "solemn promise" that nursing-home standards legislation would be introduced, but that it would be done in the autumn and "we would get to grips with what everyone recognised as a scandal".
Ms Harney, who was taking the Order of Business in the absence of the Taoiseach, said there would be a huge focus this year on issues relating to the care of the elderly but the repayments issue was "major legislation" to correct "something that was illegal for 29 years".
When Labour's health spokeswoman Liz McManus raised the issue of the repayments legislation yesterday she said the Government's legislative programme for the new Dáil term was misleading.
She called for a guarantee from the Tánaiste that the "legislation will come before the House this term to ensure people can get their money back, to which they are entitled".
When Ms Harney said the Bill would be published in 2006, the Labour deputy replied that they were told it would be published this term.
"We are correcting something that was illegal for 29 years," Ms Harney said. "A total of 15,000 cases have been assessed already. It is not the case that no work has been done but, as I told the House and the deputy previously, we have gone to tender to get a company with experience in mass claims to assist in the design of the scheme.
"That process is almost concluded, but because of public procurement and timing issues, it was not possible to conclude it earlier. That company is very much involved in assisting us with a view to ensuring the legislation is appropriate for what we are trying to do."
In a statement later Mr Perry condemned the delay in the legislation, adding that "the most galling aspect of this affair is that emergency legislation was rushed through the Dáil in May of this year to legalise the ongoing charging of fees in nursing homes".
