Paul Murphy on Disability Payments and Nursing Home Scandal
Paul Murphy challenged the state's handling of disability payments and historic nursing home charges, accusing officials of defrauding vulnerable people and calling for accountability. He asked whether the Taoiseach was personally implicated and demanded apologies and full repayment to those entitled.
Allegations of abuse of state power
Paul Murphy said the issue is "another scandal" involving the conscious abuse of state power to defraud elderly people in nursing homes and people with disabilities in institutional care centres. He accused decision-makers of repeatedly choosing to withhold legally entitled disability payments and then covering that up.
Questions to the Taoiseach and calls for apology
Mr Murphy directly asked whether the Taoiseach was personally implicated in plans to defraud tens of thousands of people with disabilities and urged an apology to those affected and their families as a first step toward restitution. He pressed for clarity on why a strategy that accepted the state had "no leg to stand on" legally was nonetheless pursued.
Nursing home charges and legal strategy explained by the Taoiseach
The Taoiseach replied in the exchange that public nursing home charges prior to 2005-06 had been compensated prospectively when the Fair Deal was introduced in 2009 and that taxpayers had covered €480 million for those who paid charges in public homes. He distinguished private nursing homes, saying medical card patients did not have an unqualified entitlement to free private care and that prior agreements, test cases and bona fide defences informed the state's legal approach. An Attorney General report is awaited and some cases have been settled while others have not.
Disability payments, timeline and memos
The Taoiseach said the disability allowance has been paid in full for the past 15 years and that the disputed period relates to prior to 2007. He noted the legal advice on disability payments differs from the nursing home advice, that he had not seen a 2009 memo but had recently seen a 2011 memo, and cautioned against reading memos in isolation. He said the three coalition leaders and Cabinet had discussed the nursing home issue but not yet the disability payment issue.
Legal documents and selective quotation
The Taoiseach warned that government memos can be lengthy and that selectively quoted passages can create misleading impressions. He said the state's strategy had been to identify a lead test case and defend it, and that memos and briefing documents taken together might present a different overall picture than isolated extracts.
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Yesterday it was elderly people in nursing homes. Today it is people with disabilities living in institutional care centres. Another day, another scandal involving the conscious abuse of state power to defraud the most vulnerable people. Rather than caring for these people, as the state is legally obliged to do, instead a decision was taken, and repeatedly taken, at the highest level, to rip them off. I was listening earlier, the Taoiseach said that the state did not have a leg to stand on, legally, when it came to people with disabilities. The rip-off took place in two ways, firstly by not paying them the disability payments they were legally entitled to, and then by covering that up and adopting the same hush-hush, settle-out-of-court legal strategy as with nursing home charges. Taoiseach, you were forced yesterday, a day after saying you had nothing to do with it, to admit that you were personally implicated in the nursing home scandal, along with pretty much the entire political establishment over the last 50 years. But a question in relation to the disability payments, which also includes a period in which you were the Minister for Health, are you personally implicated in this? In this plan to defraud tens of thousands of people with disabilities? Will you take the opportunity to apologise to these people and their families as a first step to ensuring that they receive every penny to which they are entitled? If you accept that the state did not have a legal leg to stand on, then why was this strategy pursued? Thank you very much for your questions. Again, in relation to the historic nursing home charges, this is the private nursing homes. I want to emphasise once again that this does not relate to anyone who is currently in a nursing home today or in recent years. It relates to charges prior to the 2005-2006 period. The matter was resolved prospectively when the fair deal was set up in 2009, which is the legal basis by which anyone can receive a place in a nursing home and sets out the contributions that they have to make towards that, if any. At the stage, the taxpayer has compensated those who paid charges in public nursing homes at a cost of €480 million. That was the right thing to do and it was done at the time. In relation to private nursing homes, the situation is different and that was explained at the time back in 2006. The government does not accept that medical card patients ever had an unqualified entitlement to free private nursing home care. Even today, medical card patients that choose or are forced to go privately do not get a refund. Where we do pay for private care for people with medical cards, it is done by prior agreements. There is a system in place. You cannot just bill the government after the fact. It was never the intention of the government or the Oireachtas to create such an entitlement. That is clear from the debates at the time and that does matter. Some cases have been settled, others have not. There is a report now awaited from the AG. I do think the legal strategy has been misrepresented and memos have been selectively quoted. It is clear from the memos that I have seen and I am sure I have not seen them all, but it is clear from the memos that I have seen that the strategy was to identify a test case or a lead case and then to defend it. The state sets out what its bona fide defence would be and there are three lines of defence and any one of them would have been adequate. Cases were settled, as I mentioned, but not all. That was done on an individual basis. I think the issue of the disability payment is a different one. The legal advice is different and much more clear. I have not seen the 2009 memo. I just saw the programme on primetime last night. I have seen the 2011 one, but only recently. I will look into it further. As I said earlier, this relates to prior to 2007. The disability allowance has been paid in full for the past 15 years to people with disabilities and long-term care. It does relate to the period before that. I think that is significant. The three coalition leaders have discussed the nursing home issue, as is the whole Cabinet. We have not discussed the issue of disability payment as yet, but I am sure we will. One thing I would caution people to do is not to read memos in isolation. There may be many different memos and briefing documents that might put a different picture on things. I would caution people not to selectively read or selectively quote memos. Government memos can be 50 or 60 pages long. It is very easy to take out a sentence or a paragraph and create a particular impression from that. When it is seen in totality, the entire memo and all of the other memos that came before and after, the situation may look very difficult. I know members know that. It may look very different. I know members know that deep down. They might not want to bother with that, but all of you will have files and documents in your offices. You take out one paragraph or one page from that big file. It would not create an accurate impression as to what the entire file looks like. I know you know that and it does not suit you to know that, but you do know that. Just in relation to tax on investment funds, the Government obviously keeps all tax matters under review. There are finance bills every year, but I am not at liberty to say what might be in them, but when they are published it becomes clear. Thank you very much. Thank you.
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