Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 17 October 2006
301 Mr. Cregan asked the Minister for Health and Children the reason residents in a home (details supplied) in County Limerick do not appear to qualify for repayment of nursing home fees, as per recent legislation; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [32630/06]
View answerThe Health (Repayment Scheme) Act 2006 provides a legal framework for a scheme to repay recoverable health charges for publicly funded long term residential care and also regulates patients private property accounts. Recoverable health charges were charges imposed on persons with full eligibility under the Health (Charges for In-Patient Services) Regulations 1976 as amended in 1987 or the Institutional Assistance Regulations 1954 as amended in 1965.
Section 39 of the Health Act 2004, allows the Health Service Executive (HSE) to give assistance to any person or body that provides or proposes to provide a service similar or ancillary to a service that the HSE may provide.
An organisation funded under Section 39 is not providing services for or on behalf of the HSE and does not have the power to levy charges under the Health (Charges for In-Patient Service) Regulations 1976 as amended in 1987, or the Institutional Assistance Regulations 1954 as amended in 1965. Voluntary organisations assisted under Section 39 of the Health Act 2004 are not covered by the Supreme Court decision of 16 February 2005 and therefore residents in homes which were in receipt of such funding do not come within the remit of the scheme established under the Health (Repayment Scheme) Act 2006.
