Yesterday, the Tánaiste announced that the Government is introducing emergency legislation to put in place a sound legal basis for charging elderly patients in public care. I want to give credit to the Tánaiste for moving on this matter in the wake of legal advice given to her after Deputy Perry first raised the matter. I have serious reservations about passing complex legislation in one day at the end of a Dáil term. It is because of Government incompetency in the first instance that this matter has arisen.
I want to refer to the specific issue of the ex gratia payment to the elderly people involved. My party was pilloried for 50 years about a decision made by the late Ernest Blythe in regard to old age pensions. This is a very sensitive matter for these people. Who are they? They are not the people who attend at tents at the Galway races or go on multiple holidays each year. They are the sick, the elderly, the lame, the blind, stroke victims, Alzheimer’s patients in their 70s, 80s and 90s. Because of the incompetence of legislation introduced by the then Minister, Deputy Martin, the State took illegally payments and contributions from these people. It is now expected that these people, many of whom have no next of kin or are unable to follow the events of the world as we might wish, should apply to the Department of Health and Children, which rushed through legislation in 2001 and took payments from these people, for an ex gratia payment.
Before getting into the analysis of the legislation and the complex issues contained therein, the Taoiseach and Tánaiste should examine the matter of a requirement on the elderly to apply for an ex gratia payment, whatever order it may be. The requirement should be waived because the Department has all the records of and from whom it took these payments. This is a very sensitive matter for thousands of elderly people. I ask for this commitment before the legislation is published.