Payback for 70,000 in nursing home fees scandal

UP TO 70,000 people illegally charged for nursing home care are to be repaid in full with interest in a radical compensation scheme which could cost €1 billion.

Only pensioners still living and the estates of those who died after December 1998 will be refunded. The Government will apply the statute of limitations to all other claims.

The former Secretary General of the Department of Health told a Dáil committee examining the issue that had a meeting scheduled with the Tánaiste and Health Minister Mary Harney proceeded last year, she would have been informed of the nursing care charges issue.