Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has conceded that he “must have been briefed” about the legal strategy on nursing home charges but insisted that he “would have agreed” to sign off on it if he had been asked.
The Fine Gael leader insisted that the story has been “misrepresented” and that it “would not have been a case of [people] just going to the nursing home of their choice and then asking the Government to pick up the bill”.
There have been allegations in recent days that some people were “illegally charged” for nursing home stays. In 1970, it was decided that people with medical cards were entitled to free nursing home stays. However, some medical cardholders were placed in private homes due to capacity constraints and paid for care.
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Documents from a Department of Health whistleblower suggest that the Department of Health and the Government accepted that the State would not win these cases and that they would be settled out of court. It has been alleged that the settlement was offered at the latest possible opportunity, meaning that only those with money could pursue a case.
On Newstalk on Monday, Mr Varadkar said that he was “never party to devising or agreeing a legal strategy in relation to nursing home charges".
When questioned on the controversy in the Dáil on Tuesday by Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald, the Taoiseach said that he “must have been briefed” on the matter but that he could not confirm when this happened or who had briefed him.
He also appeared to back the strategy.
He said: “I do not know if I was specifically asked to sign off on it being continued.
“But if I had been asked. I would have agreed to do so. This was a sound policy approach and a legitimate legal strategy by the Government at the time, by previous Governments, and by Governments since.
“All Ministers, from 2005 onwards, at all times acted in good faith, in the public interest, in accordance with official advice, and in accordance with legal advice from the Attorney General, and that is exactly how they should act.”
Mr Varadkar said that the matter has been “grossly misrepresented”. He argued that the claim that “people in private nursing homes were illegally charged is not correct”.
He continued: “The strategy was to defend the cases relating to private nursing homes on several grounds, in particular that medical card holders did not have an entitlement to free private nursing home care.”
Attorney General Rossa Fanning will now prepare a briefing document on the matter for next Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting. This will then be published,
Senior Government sources attempted to downplay the scandal to the Irish Mirror, repeating Mr Varadkar’s statement that the story has been “misrepresented”.
One Senior Fianna Fáil source said that a compensation scheme had been put in place for people who had been charged for public nursing homes and that €480m had been paid out. This followed the publication of the Travers Report in 2005. They said that this was “well chronicled and publicised at the time”.
They also dismissed the idea of “secret memos”, stating that Departments often put legal strategies in place on a range of different issues.
It has been suggested on Tuesday evening that Mr Varadkar had "signed off" on the strategy when he was Health Minister. It was reported that a 2016 memo for the assistant secretary in the Department of Health in 2016 said that "the minister" had agreed to continue the strategy.
However, a spokesperson for the Department of Health denied that this related to the Taoiseach.
"It is the clear understanding of officials in the Department of Health that the reference in an internal briefing in May 2016 does not refer to Minister Varadkar, as was, but refers to a previous Minister as the decision referred to was made well before his time."
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