The Opposition is seeking to draw the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Mr Martin, into the controversy surrounding the Government's failed attempt to retrospectively legalise nursing home charges to medical card holders.
As the Government made efforts to plot a way out of the crisis prompted by the Supreme Court's unanimous rejection of the Bill to legalise the charges, the Ombudsman Ms Emily O'Reilly said her predecessors had told the Department of Health as early as 1989 that medical card holders should not be charged for long-stay care.
The Fine Gael leader, Mr Enda Kenny, alleged in the Dáil that Mr Martin failed to act on the problem, even though he knew the State had no power to levy the charges, when he was Minister for Health.
Reporters questioned Mr Martin three times about the affair yesterday but he declined to comment. At the annual conference of the Marketing Institute in Dublin, he said it would not be appropriate while an inquiry was under way.
The former head of Forfás, Mr John Travers, was commissioned in December to examine the management of the issue by the Department of Health. His report is expected next month.
Mr Martin is understood to be helping Mr Travers with his inquiries, and believes it is preferable to work in this forum than to make comments in public about the affair.
But in the Dáil yesterday, Mr Kenny said Mr Martin must have known of the legal problems with the practice of charging patients in long-stay institutions for their care because they had been raised at a high-level meeting of officials that he attended.
"The former Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Martin, was deemed to have left a meeting when the matter was discussed," said Mr Kenny.
"His two Ministers of State were present, and it seems that the former Minister for Health and Children was in full possession of that information and sought not to act on it."
Ms Harney confirmed in the Dáil that the Government was losing €2.5 million per week because it could not legally charge for nursing home care.
In addition, she said, the Government will have to introduce a supplementary estimate of more than €500 million to meet the cost of repaying the fees taken illegally from nursing home residents.
Ms Harney told the Labour leader, Mr Pat Rabbitte, that there will be no cutbacks in the existing level of service in the healthcare system as a result of the Supreme Court judgment.
Ms O'Reilly said in a statement that previous ombudsmen had reported "in considerable detail" in their annual reports of 1989 and 1992, and in a special report in 2001, that the charge for long-stay care should not have been levied on medical card holders.
She expected to receive a number of complaints about such issues and would take into account the individual circumstances of the complaint and the administrative actions of the health board and the Department.
"In any particular case where I find that maladministration has adversely affected a complainant I will make recommendations for redress to the relevant health agencies or the Department of Health and Children, as appropriate," she said.
"I wish to emphasis that, in taking this course of action, I am not questioning the legality or constitutionality of the Health (Amendment)(No 2) Bill, 2004. As in the past, my focus will be on the administrative actions of the Department and the health agencies," Ms O'Reilly said.
